


Poison to Men's Souls

by rhombus



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, F/F, F/M, Family Secrets, Mutual Pining, Mystery, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-15 01:34:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11795685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhombus/pseuds/rhombus
Summary: The Montagues have a long-held family secret, and someone out there is hellbent on discovering it. But their quest may put Benvolio and Rosaline directly in the crosshairs.A story of greed and love, of secrets, mystery, and murder.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place in a mythical latter-half of season two, after the conclusion of the battle and the victory of Verona.

 

 

_"You've done the father. Now you have compunctions with the boy? Just be done with it, brother, and we shall have our prize."_

His aunt and uncle were in another room; he could hear them, though they probably thought they were speaking low. In this hushed and empty place since his father's death he could hear everything, every rodent's skitter, every footman's tread, every single one of his own breaths.

Benvolio counted the triangles on his puzzle box again. His father had been using it to teach him his maths, but that job fell to himself now he supposed. He touched the pieces in the order he'd been taught, counting out the numbers quietly to himself.

_"Is that what you think this is about? That damned stone? A myth, a legend. Nothing more than a bedtime story, Tessa."_

_"It exists. It is here."_

His aunt sounded a little frantic, a little wild, but he understood that feeling. His own world wobbled, unsteady, now that he didn't know what would happen. Would he have to move? Would he have to live on the streets? Best not to think about it. Best to do what his father said and practice his numbers, instead.

_"Where exactly, pray tell? Have you got it? No? And even if it were to exist—which it doesn't—you don't think the boy might likely be of use? You'd need him yet."_

"Fourteen, fifteen, _sixteen_..." Benvolio's voice grew louder; it was the only way he could keep his concentration over the growing din outside.

_"Your sentimentality will be your downfall, Damiano. There are only so many places it could be. With the boy out of our hair, we would have free rein of the house."_

_"Our brother's house."_

His uncle sounded sad just then, and Benvolio tried to ignore it. If anyone was sad around him, if anyone cried, he knew he'd collapse. The weight of his grief was balanced on the edge of a cliff and the slightest push would send him crashing down. He didn't have the words to express this, so he opted for outright repression instead.

 _"Our house, now,"_ said his aunt, her voice a soft hiss.

 

* * *

 

His uncle pushed in and yelled, his voice pounding straight between Benvolio's ears. "You have _nothing_ that isn't _mine!_ "

 

* * *

 

Benvolio woke with a headache. Every bit of him ached, actually. He stretched his arms above his head and felt the knobs of his spine pop back into place. His temple still pulsed where his cut healed, his ribs still sore from his final duel with Paris. This past month had been the most pain prone of his life, at least since his father's death.

No, not death.

His father's _murder_.

Maybe that was what was bringing up all these memory-filled dreams. He had been a but a boy when it happened, and maybe he should have been smart enough to put the pieces together before now, before being hand-fed the villainous tale by his snake of an aunt.

She had known, had encouraged, had wished him dead, too. Perhaps he should have been immune to the hurt by now, but somehow he wasn't. They were supposed to be his family, his flesh and blood, to protect him from the world until he was old enough to protect himself. He hated being associated with either of them, with their hateful name and their insatiable lust for power. He hated that they'd deprived him of a true family, taught him not to care, made him cold and crude and rude and unlovable. If he'd been raised by a better man, perhaps Benvolio himself could have been a better man.

He was glad his uncle was gone. He was glad his aunt was nowhere to be found. 

"You awake, sire?"

He tucked his hate away as he called his valet into his room. "Yes, Sergio, come in."

The young man bustled in, eager to please as always. As far as paid-for company went, Sergio wasn't too bad. Benvolio was certain he was the kind of man who'd only sell him out to the _very_ highest bidder.

Maybe that wasn't fair. Maybe there was still some honor and loyalty left in this world, uncorrupted by greed.

"All black again today, sire?"

"Yes," Benvolio said. "The occasion does typically call for it."

"Bit morbid, isn't it, sire?" Sergio laid out a fresh shirt on the dresser. "Having your poor uncle's funeral on the same day as the Prince's victory ball?"

"It's a celebratory kind of day," he said, discarding his night shirt and reaching for the day's. Sergio sent a disapproving frown his way. Perhaps Benvolio was the only one still feeling some gallows humor after everything that had happened. If anyone deserved a bit gallows humor, it was the innocent man sent to them, after all.

"And your lady?" Sergio asked, clearly trying to find a safer subject. Though perhaps he'd just stumbled into a staked pit. "Should we be stopping by House Capulet to provide escort?"

Benvolio sighed, and felt all his aches double down. "She's not—well, I don't know if she is." He pulled his shirt over his head. "Matters are… unsettled."

He hadn't spoken to Capulet since before the battle, and hadn't said much of significance to her then. The time hadn't been right; everything had been falling apart around them. They spoke nothing of the moment they'd shared, no elucidation of her feelings. Had the kiss meant the same thing to her as it did to him? What _had_ it meant to him?

"As you say, milord," Sergio said, though the skepticism was quite clear in his voice.

"She's sure to be at the ball tonight." Benvolio's heart clenched at the thought, even as he kept his face clear of emotion. Sometimes pain and hope were only a hair's breadth apart. "She's very close to the Prince and Princess."

"As you say, milord."

"I'll… speak to her then."

And say what, exactly? Benvolio hadn't the slightest clue. That he was desperate without her? That he longed for the simple touch of her hand on his? That every word she spoke and every breath she breathed was dear to him? That he'd be in a grave if it weren't for her, in literal pieces, and how does one ever repay that kind of debt?

By letting her go, he'd finally come to believe. By letting her live whatever life she wanted to live and grab whatever happiness was hers to have.

And if that happiness happened to be shared with him? He'd thank every star in the heavens one by one until his knees gave out.

Because he could finally admit it to himself, after days of denial and self-doubt. He loved her. He loved her with every beat of his heart. A Capulet. _That_ Capulet. He was sure Romeo was laughing at him, wherever his soul now resided. He could really only laugh at himself sometimes, or possibly weep at his heart's folly. Love had ever been his downfall. If he'd only married Minola's daughter in the first place all this pain could have been avoided. All this pain, but all this beautiful revelatory _feeling_ , too. Would he have traded any of it not to have known her? No, he thought. He'd not trade the feeling of finally being alive, of finally being _worth_ something, worthy of the friendship and trust of such a woman.

He loved her. He wanted her. He needed her. But as much as his heart cried out for her, he couldn't be greedy with her. He couldn't be like his aunt and uncle, the bearers of his cursed name. His uncle had told him that everything Benvolio had was from him, but Benvolio refused his ruthlessness, his avarice, his disregard for others. He refused it with everything _good_ Capulet had seen and defended in him.

If she loved another, or even if she didn't, even if she felt only friendship for him, he would quietly bow out and live his life—the life she had given him—without her, miserable but understanding it'd be enough that she was happy, that she had found worth in him once, had saved him, and was _happy_.

 

* * *

 

Rosaline checked her reflection in the looking glass. Her hair was pulled back with the kind of austerity required of the somber event. Her skin was clear and her lips were pulled down just enough in the corners to look sad but reassuring.

" _What_ are you wearing?" Livia waltzed up behind her and draped her arms over Rosaline's shoulders in a loose hug. "That's no way to dress for a ball. You look hideous."

Her sister put on a brave face, Rosaline knew, after the heartbreak and betrayal she'd suffered at the hands of her villainous husband, but this frank assessment? This was pure Livia, playful and brash at her core, shining through all the dark clouds of their lives.

"I go to the funeral first," Rosaline said, pinching Livia's forearm with a sweet viciousness in return for her unhelpful commentary.

"Ow." Livia scooched Rosaline over and plunked herself down next to her on the vanity bench. "The funeral? Whose funeral?"

"Lord Montague's."

" _What?_ Why?" Livia's nose scrunched as if she'd just tasted something sour. "Oh, to dance upon the grave? Very well. I approve."

Rosaline tried to hold back her laugh, but how could she when Livia was here, next to her, smiling and unharmed? "Oh, stop."

"But seriously, sister," Livia said. "Must you go? That hateful man never did anything good for this city, for our family, nor even his own most likely."

"True. But it is for his family, and our own, that I go."

"His family, eh?" Livia asked, a gleam in her eye.

Rosaline swallowed, then readjusted her hair one more time. "And our own," she repeated.

"I always said you were like a beautiful portrait, hanging in a golden hall, but even they keep a little mystery in their features, dear sister." She brushed imaginary dust off Rosaline's cheek with the pad of her thumb.

Rosaline straightened her shoulders. "I know not of what you speak."

"You know not?"

"No."

"Well, dear Rosaline, let me enlighten you. You—" She squeezed one of Rosaline's shoulders in commiseration, and sighed not at all unhappily. "—are in love."

Rosaline felt a heat rise in her cheeks. "I am late, is what I am," she said, trying not to let Livia's words get to her. She knew she felt something for Montague, but love? She'd been betrayed by love before, as had her poor sister, and she had vowed to give it up, to give her life over to God and herself instead. Wasn't that still what she wanted?

She didn't think of his face just then, the moment just after she kissed him, before he reached out to kiss her back. She didn't think of the longing way he'd touched her, as if every contact hurt. She didn't think of his eyes, or his tears, or his lips. She didn't think of the taste of him. She didn't.

Today was not a day for love. She looked at herself in the mirror again and steeled her shoulders. Today was for solace, and friendship. Love, should it manage to wend its way back into her good graces, could wait for another day.

 

* * *

 

The Montague mausoleum was cold. Rosaline readjusted her mantilla over her shoulders. Friar Lawrence stood at the head of the large vault, his hands clasped before him in prayer. The room was more filled than Rosaline would have imagined. Escalus was here, and Isabella at his side. Her uncle, too, had come, with a large coterie of young Capulet soldiers. A handful of men and squires Rosaline recognized from House Montague carried in the shrouded pall, while common folk followed behind tossing daisies at their feet. Benvolio stood apart from them, a dark island adrift in a sea of white stone and yellow flowers.

When the pall was placed, the friar unclasped his hands and raised them to the heavens. "Lord, we beseech Thee to care for our fallen nobility, to cleanse the dead of all earthly sin and take him into Your sweet embrace. Damiano, Lord of the Montagues, walked this world as we all do, imperfect, prone to temptation and weakness. But in his last acts he strove, as we all must strive, for the perfection of Your creation on this world. For honor and goodness. He died in the defense of his city, of his sovereign." He looked toward Benvolio with sympathy. "For his family."

Rosaline could see the outline of Benvolio's throat bob as he swallowed hard. His fists clenched behind his back as if he was holding something in. Something feral and angry, something ready to scream.  

Quietly she moved to stand next to him. His shoulders dropped a little when she did so, his fingers loosened their death group. He stared straight ahead, his eyes glassed over but not wet with tears. There was a tenseness to his face, to his whole body, that thrummed off him. Feeling brave, Rosaline reached for a hand, threaded her fingers through his. Benvolio let out a breath that sounded as if he'd been holding it back for years, and squeezed her fingers gently.

A single tear fell down his cheek then, and he quickly wiped it away with his free hand.

It was difficult to imagine what he was feeling. Rosaline knew he and his uncle had a… complicated relationship, but it wasn't one Montague had spoken of often or in any detail. There were hints, here and there, of an antinomy between them. Benvolio's self-doubt, his seeming hatred of his own family name, his loneliness and isolation, all of it stemmed from somewhere, and Rosaline could only imagine it was from a family as uncaring as her own. It wasn't as if she hadn't felt all those things as well over the past years spent as a servant in the home of her own father's brother.

The shrouded body was entombed; two young boys in vestments laid down mortar and brick over the open chamber. Most of the attendees filed out of the room, though a few young men stayed, crouched on their knees, in vigil.

Benvolio gripped her hand tight, once, then released her. She turned to him and said very quietly, "How fare you?" She longed to grab his hand again, but didn't.

"I am well." He stared, deep in thought, as the last brick went in. "I thought… I would feel differently when it was over. Nevertheless…" He turned and smiled at her. It didn't reach his eyes. "It _is_ over."

"Montague—"

"Thank you for coming," he said then, and there was true feeling in his voice at least. That she could tell. "You are very kind. I had not expected any Capulets, much less a whole army."

"Not any at all?" she asked.

His smile was a little less rigid this time. "Well, I had _hoped_."

She allowed herself to smile back at him, the smallest curve of her mouth, and stood with him in silence while candles were lit around them in the quiet, echoing chamber.

 

* * *

 

The palace ballroom thrummed with people. Rosaline and Livia skirted their way around them, laughing with joy at finally being able to let loose after weeks, months, even years of being tamped down, told they were not allowed freedom or happiness or choice. Now the world seemed open to them again. They were both ladies, and Livia herself had rights to her late husband's wealth should she choose to exercise that right with his father, the Prince of Mantua. She hadn't, she wouldn't, she declared, for it was blood money and worthless to her. But knowing it was out there untethered them both from the kind of earthshaking worries that had plagued them since their parents' deaths and their subsequent fall from society.

"I am going to drink wine and frolic until I fall over!" Livia declared, before spinning away from Rosaline at the end of a carol-chain of dancers.

Rosaline watched her go and had to stop happy tears from filling her eyes. How her sister could survive so much heartbreak at so young an age was heartbreaking in and of itself. She seemed to accept sorrow as a natural part of life and moved on from it so quickly, just to meet the next hardship head-on with a smile upon her determined face. Perhaps it was her youth, or just that intrinsic spirit in her that refused to be broken.

Rosaline circled the room and scanned for familiar faces. She had changed out of her mourning clothes and into one of the finer frocks in her closet. Actually, it had been the one she wore to the betrothal ceremony, now that she looked at it. It was still slightly smoke-charred on one hem. Still beautiful though. It survived an explosion, was dusted off, and carried on in its purpose. She could admire the fortitude and hoped she herself could strive to do the same.

She surveyed the sea of faces again. Not that she was looking for anyone in particular, but, oh. There he was. Montague had bid her farewell at the funeral with no promise to see her here tonight, but she had _hoped_. It felt… wrong being there without him. He who had suffered the most injustice under the treachery of Paris and Giuliana. It was nothing more than that, she told herself.

She watched him from across the room. He stood alone, staring into his wine cup, his body a lean line against the pillar, slack but still somehow poised, as if the slightest threat would stir him into action. He'd always seemed that way, now that she thought about it. Always ready to defend himself. Always prepared to be beset.

It only added to the air of loneliness about him.

That wouldn't do. Tonight was a celebration, a celebration of the victory he had been instrumental in delivering.

She wound her way through the crowd to come up to him from behind his shoulder, just as he had done to her so many weeks ago at the Prince's disastrous feast.

"Montague," she whispered, and smiled when he jumped just the slightest bit.

"Ah, hullo Capulet. You… walk very quietly."

"Or perhaps you've been in your cups already."

"Or both," he agreed, smiling down at her. He'd had a rough day; she couldn't blame him for having an extra glass of wine or two. At least he was here. At least he was alive and well and smiling at her. She couldn't say what impelled her, but she needed to be near him. It made breathing somehow a little bit easier.

"Come," she said, holding out her hand to him. "Join the Istanpitta with me?"

The dancers were doing a variation on the standard chain; they would dance forward and back as one before separating into groups of three or four to circle together with clasped hands before merging back together in a line.

Benvolio nodded, eyes brightening, and Rosaline took hold of his hand, placing his cup on a nearby table. They joined the dancers, stomping and singing and laughing, reveling in the victory of their city, in their very survival against all odds. She turned to Benvolio and had never seen him so joyous, nor so carefree. It put a gladness in Rosaline's heart and a matching smile upon her face.

A familiar voice rang out from the front of the ballroom. "Minstrels!" Escalus called out, sounding his old confident self even after his injury. "A couple's dance, if you please."

The group separated as the music changed. Benvolio turned to her, a sly grin on his face. "May I?"

Rosaline curtsied, and felt a skittering all up her chest, almost as if she were being wooed for the first time. "You may, sir."

He took one of her hands, and placed his other on her waist. She stepped closer to him, close enough so their clothes touched, and felt him take in a breath. The noise of the room around them faded to faint and muffled murmurs as they moved. There was only him, and her, and the catch and release of the dance, the lightning running through her veins every time his hand came back to hers.

He moved with confidence, and she'd seen him duel before, seen him ride a horse, but this was somehow the most somatic, the most purely physical she had seen him. Each stride dynamic, each turn of his body magnetic. She was compelled to move closer to him, to breathe his same air, to taste his charisma, to take in the smell of his skin.

"You dance… surprisingly well," she said, risking words in the sanctity of their silent dance.

Benvolio let out a small huff of laughter. "You may find I'm full of surprises." They released out into separate spins before colliding once more. He looked down at her, and bit his lower lip, and breathed out audibly. "Do you... know if your uncle will be in tomorrow?"

"My uncle?"

"Yes. There is… something I must speak to him about. After, possibly, speaking with you?"

"We are speaking now, are we not, Montague?"

"That we are," he said, and then seemed to gather his courage. "I only wonder… Well… Rosaline…"

"Yes?" Rosaline's pulse rocketed. Was he—? And if he was, why was she trembling so?

"Would you—could you—consent to—"

Just then a hand landed on his shoulder, stopping them both.

"Signor Montague," Escalus said, and the two of them parted as if commanded by God Himself. The noise of the room cascaded down upon them once more as if two large doors had been swung open. Rosaline looked to Benvolio; a shutter had closed over his expression. The joy, the confidence, the trepidation and the courage, all of it blanked out. "If you will allow me to cut in."

"Of course, your grace," Benvolio said, and bowed stiffly.

Rosaline instinctively reached for him as he backed away, only to have her hand taken by Escalus. His other arm was strapped to his side to allow his chest and shoulder injury to heal undisturbed, and it made it awkward to take him in the dance's hold.

"You look well," Escalus said.

"Thank you." Rosaline craned her neck as they spun, keeping Benvolio in her sights. "As do you," she belatedly added. "And how fares your sister? I have not seen her tonight."

"She is resting; this has been a tiring ordeal for her. One of the ladies in waiting from Venice is seeing to her this evening."

"Hmm," Rosaline said absently, craning her head again.

"I…" Escalus started and stopped. Benvolio had found his way back to his lonely pillar. "I needed to apologize to you, Rosaline. I should have trusted you. You are the most honorable lady in Verona, and I dismissed you almost to mine own peril and to the downfall of the entire city. I owe you so much more than I could ever repay."

Rosaline finally looked at him. "Your grace?"

"Please." Escalus shook his head. "You can still call me Escalus. Always," he amended.

Rosaline opened her mouth to reply but something out of the corner of her eye distracted her. Two men had flanked Benvolio, and they did not look the friendliest, nor the smallest. The larger of the two had a great thick beard to match his thick arms. The smaller looked at Benvolio with beady eyes while he spoke words Rosaline could not hear. She had never seen them before. Were they Montagues as well? They had the same uncivilized look about them as Truccio had, and a chill ran down Rosaline's arms.

" _Rosaline_ ," Escalus breathed out, and there was so much desperation in the word she had to turn back to him. But he said nothing more, his head bowed slightly in penance. She lifted his chin with her finger and nodded at him, a silent forgiveness, and he nodded back, speaking no more.

Rosaline turned her gaze back to the pillar, but Benvolio and the two men were gone.

 

* * *

 

Benvolio watched Capulet and Escalus dance while a heaviness weighed on his heart. What a lovely princess she would make. She was suited for a throne, and that thought made him smile even through the anguish of seeing her in a better man's arms.

"Well, well, well. Here's our Montague," a sneering voice interrupted his bout of self-pity. Two men he recognized had come up on either side of him. Two men he recognized and had hoped to never cross paths with again.

"Severin. Porfirio," he greeted dryly. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Severin took an uncomfortable step closer to him while Porfirio loomed over his other side in silent intimidation.

"Unfinished business," said Severin. His long rat-teeth slid over his bottom lip in a gross imitation of a smile.

Benvolio felt a shudder of dread move through him. "All of my debts have been paid in full."

"Let's call it new business then."

"I want no business with you." He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned more of his weight into the pillar. Best not to have them think him intimidated by their little display. "That part of my life is over."

"Oh, now that you're a fancy Lord instead of a degenerate drunkard?"

Benvolio grit his teeth and clenched his fists tightly. It would do no good to start a fight, no matter how tempting it was. He'd only just freed himself from the iron grip of the law. "Leave this place."

"Oh, we will. And you'll be coming with us." Severin glanced over at the dancers and licked his lip. "That is, unless you'd like us to introduce ourselves to that lovely, _luscious_ Capulet you've taken a shine to."

Benvolio's fingernails dug into his palm, his fists were so ready to strike. "You will not even so much as lay your eyes on her, you understand me?"

"I don't think you understand us, Montague. Maybe it's too loud in here. Let us take this outside."

"Fine." The more distance he put between them and Capulet the better. They were nothing more than rapscallions and thugs; he could handle them. He pushed himself up to his full height and led them out of the ballroom. He stopped as soon as they were outside, but Porfirio grabbed his arm in his meaty paw and dragged him around a dark corner. "I wouldn't do that," Benvolio warned, going for the dagger at his back. But before he could wrap his fingers around the hilt a sack dropped over his head from behind and thick fist rammed into his stomach, knocking the air out of him. "What—?"

One more blow to the belly and his legs went out from underneath him, and he was dragged, then thrown, landing on the floor of what felt like a carriage.

"Ow."

A rope was quickly wrapped around his wrists behind him and he tried to get to his knees, to get enough momentum to throw himself at his attackers before they could subdue him, when something blunt and hard knocked him on the side of the head and he fell back down onto his chest.

The carriage started moving; he could feel every hard stone the wheels rolled over in its haste. He groaned. _Capulet_. If those fiends touched her…

"Is he still awake? He needn't be," said a familiar female voice, before the blunt instrument hit his head again and the world fell away.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella shepherds her hapless flock, and Rosaline formulates a plan.

 

He was humming again. It was maddening. This revised tax proposal wasn't going to write itself, and since _someone_ was a little too busy tapping his fingers against his chair to help, to even dictate the damned thing to Matteo—

Isabella dropped her quill on the table and turned to Escalus, finally deciding that as with most things in the palace she had to meet it head on in order to get anything done.

"How was your little fete last night, brother?" she asked, trying and failing to keep the annoyance out of her voice. "No fork-stabbings, one hopes?"

Escalus was looking particularly dreamy this morning. Isabella half expected him to be pulling the petals off of daisies in his lovesick state.

"No," Escalus said. "Just food, and drink, and dance."

"And with whom, pray tell, did you dance?"

"Who says I danced?"

"The way you keep humming the same three notes over and over again, that's who."

"You wouldn't understand, dear sister. You've always been so immune to love."

Isabella bristled. Well, that was… rude. Isabella understood love. She had felt it before, even if it hadn't been the kind of love one could write sonnets about or moon over in the morning in plain view of everyone. No, Isabella's loves were quiet, intimate moments. The brush of fingers against her cheek, a kiss in a quiet room. Love need not be showy and bombastic to be real. Her brother could learn a thing or two about keeping his affairs closer to the chest, if they were being honest with each other. It would certainly make him a more effective ruler, were he not so moved by his heart to public displays. It was that need to prove his love that put him in the line of Paris's foul archer. Her brother needed to protect himself more; a heart exposed was a heart too easy to pierce.

Escalus at least had the decency to look a little chagrined when he finally said, "Rosaline Capulet."

Isabella rolled her eyes, picked up her quill, and returned to the proposal on her desk.

"Sister?"

 _Lord give me the patience of a saint._ "Yes?" she said.

"Now that the duomo is being rebuilt…"

" _Yes?_ "

"And the families are no longer at war…"

"Oh just get to it," she mumbled, hopefully too quiet to be heard. Her brother might be in a good mood this morning, but Isabella still needed to remember her place, which wasn't on the throne.

"There's no reason for me to stay impartial between them," he finished.

Isabella turned back toward him. The tax proposal could suddenly wait. "Escalus. Did you affiance yourself last night?"

He lowered his head and smiled, the perfect picture of self-satisfaction.

"Oh, heavens, you did, didn't you?"

"Not exactly," he admitted.

"You—" Isabella swung her drying quill at him expectantly. "Explain what that means."

"We danced."

"And?"

"And she forgave me."

"For which act exactly?" Isabella was feeling a little too generous of spirit to list them all aloud, though the list was quite extensive. Selling Rosaline to the Montagues, bargaining quite ruthlessly with her virtue, ignoring her warnings about Paris, almost executing her whatever Benvolio Montague was to her, getting himself shot by an arrow, almost dying, just all that.

"All of it," sighed Escalus. He rested his chin on a closed fist. It was perfectly pathetic, in a sweet kind of way.

"But you didn't ask her," Isabella said.

"I did not." His face clouded over again then, as if recalling a painful memory. Well, if his unhappiness meant more mooning for him and thus more tax proposals for her, Isabella was just going to have to do something about it, now wasn't she? If he wasn't going to clear the path to his own happiness, she was just going to have to do it herself. She'd get him his fair flower. He was right, after all. The families were no longer at war. For now.

Gentle footsteps echoed as a young servant entered the room bearing a letter.

"For you, your grace," she said, handing the parcel to Isabella. Isabella nodded at her and then carefully removed the wax seal. It bore the Montague crest.     

>   _My dearest Isabella, it is with a sad, but full heart I write to you, my sweet young protégé…_  

 

* * *

  

The sound of horses jolted Rosaline out of her seat and to the balcony. She looked out with bated breath, not knowing why her heart was pounding just as loud as their hooves.

"Hmm," she huffed, as the horses kept riding down the road, off to some other location.

She could lie to herself all she wanted, but she wasn't fooling herself. Here she was, thinking of little else, unable to concentrate on her book or her needlework, waiting for a man. An aggravating, scruffy, ill-tempered, party-abandoning man who was likely coming here to ask yet another man if he could complete their original transaction and trade little old her for a large sum of money.

It should have disgusted her. And yet all she felt was a quiet disappointment each time he _didn't_ arrive.

Where had Montague gone to last night? Why hadn't he finished his question before they parted? It left her off-balanced, the incompletion of that question. There was nothing else he could have meant, yet the words were still unspoken. She wasn't even sure why it mattered. She had no answer for him. None that would satisfy them both, she was sure.

It was a complication. Everything about him was complicated. How he could be so rude, and yet so generous. So brash, and yet so sensitive. The way he made her skin stand up on edge with annoyance, and something else, something warmer and… complicated. He couldn't truly love her, could he? Not such a 'harpy' as she, certainly. Esteem, _trust_ , these were uncomplicated feelings they shared, feelings she understood on an elemental level. He was Benvolio and she trusted him. One could not exist without the other. But love? She didn't know if he believed in it any more than she did. Neither of them had been exposed to it for long before it turned bitter and crumbled into dust, like the very motes cascading through her room now, visible but unattainable. She danced her fingers underneath them and remembered the way it felt to move with him last night.

Unless… It occurred to her in the harsh light coming through the window—maybe she had it all wrong. She dropped her hand. Montague could be coming here to demand the return of the bride price. After all, forty-thousand ducats was nothing to sneer at. And for all that Rosaline had done to try to help him clear his name, it still mightn't have been worth that great a sum. She hadn't technically carried out her side of the bargain.

It was hard to believe, but maybe not so much the more she dwelled on it, for dwelling was all she could do as she waited. Montague had abandoned the ball early, leaving her without even so much as a goodbye. And the promise of gold could make men do much worse, as they had learned so devastatingly from Truccio and Gramio. Since he'd been freed Benvolio hadn't said a single word to her of the kiss they'd shared. He'd tiptoed around her, careful not to touch or even look, before riding out to meet Paris's army and his possible demise. He hadn't tried to kiss her again.

Not so much the acts of a man hopelessly in love. Maybe the acts of a man ashamed of his desperation in the face of death. It was a sobering thought, and it put an ache in her chest.

Because last night? When he'd touched her, she could _feel_ it. There was still something unspoken and powerful between them. But that was the rub, wasn't it. _Unspoken_. Every time her mind inched closer to the word, her heart would shy away from it, skittish and unsure.

Yet she felt so free with him, to be herself, to be wrong and upset and mean and careless and impertinent, confident and forthright, all those things a woman wasn't supposed to be. And he had been rude and crass, weak and scared, had opened his entire soul to her in his despair. That was the true trust that stretched between them, tangling them together, two vines intertwined, until she could barely tell herself from him. They would never lie to each other, unless they lied to themselves first.

She believed it when he said he was coming today. She felt a little more empty in her stomach each hour that passed when he didn't.

She was being pathetic. Pathetic and dopey. Her room felt stuffy, like the walls would close in on her eventually if she didn't get up and do something, anything, that wasn't waiting around like a princess in a tower. She stood and ventured downstairs, and found her uncle in his study poring over papers and bills as he always seemed to be doing nowadays.

"Uncle," she said. He looked up with tired eyes, the bags under them drooping even more than usual. She could hear him most nights, walking the halls, the light of his torch casting a glow under her door. What demons haunted him she could only guess at.

"Ah, niece. Hello," he said. He opened his mouth to say more, but then a blankness fell over his features, as if he'd realized he had no more words for her left in him. He went back to his papers, shuffling them like an old man searching for a lost love letter. Perhaps he was. She believed he had truly loved Giuliana, even if her aunt's feelings were never reciprocated. Her banishment was a harsh blow to him, Rosaline could tell, and it sent him more often than not to Juliet's tomb in the dead of night. It amazed Rosaline, a little, that she could still feel sympathy for a man who had indentured her and her sister instead of embracing them after they'd lost everything.

"Do you need anything?" she asked, as if she were still his servant, but it didn't feel as awful as she thought it would. It was something a niece could ask her ailing uncle.

"Redemption," he said, cryptically, looking past her toward the open window. Through it she could just barely glimpse the unfinished dome of the cathedral.

"Redemption? Wherefore?"

"Ah," he said, turning back to her and shaking his head as if beating out the dust. "Never you mind. Nothing. Are you going to stand there all afternoon or did you need something of me?"

Rosaline took a deep breath and tried not to let his curtness get to her. She already knew he was not a man worth admiring too deeply.

"Have there been any visitors today?" she asked, courage gathering in her shoulders.

"Bill collectors, mostly," he said, and sighed unhappily.

"No one else? Not… Signor Montague?"

"Montague?" Her uncle looked back up at her before flicking his hand dismissively. "No. The young Lord Montague has not come by. I'd be surprised if he was even upright, to be honest."

"What mean you by that, Uncle?"

He rolled his eyes and Rosaline felt a sting of annoyance bite into her.

"Oh, don't puff your feathers at me so, child. Everyone knows the boy's an aimless drunk." Her uncle went back to his papers as if that was the end of the conversation, while Rosaline felt her blood run hot under her skin. Her fingernails left a line of crescent-shaped dents in her palm.

"He is not a boy, nor a drunk."

Her uncle tsked, actually tsked her, as if she were being a naughty child. "You may have been too busy dancing with the Prince to notice how deep in his cups young Montague was getting last night."

She recalled seeing Benvolio across the room, staring into his wine. "He had a drink of wine or two, yes, but—"

"And then going off with those miscreants. A shame, really." Her uncle shook his head in mock sympathy. "The boy might have actually had some promise out from under the thumb of his tyrannical uncle, if only he had the character."

Rosaline chose to ignore the jab in favor of the meatier revelation. Perhaps one baffling mystery from last night could be unveiled, after all. "What miscreants?" Dread crawled through her again at the memory of the two men circling Benvolio like a pair of vultures. "Who were they?" 

"Oh, just a couple of gamblers from Market Street. Dreadful chaps."

"Gamblers?" Rosaline paused. What on earth was Benvolio doing with a pair of gamblers? "Do you know these gamblers? Who are they? What are their names?"

Her uncle bristled under the sudden interrogation. "I don't know them, specifically," he said, but she wasn't sure if she could believe him. He wouldn't look her in the eyes. "You can always tell a gambler from their looks."

"Tell me their names, Uncle!"

" _Rosaline!_ Enough!" His fist slammed on his desk. A stack of papers sailed off the edge. Rosaline took a step back, pulse racing. "You are acting hysterical, girl. Young Montague, finally freed from the yoke of this sham betrothal, has clearly drifted back to his old life of fecklessness, and that can only be a good thing for our family. I've already spent half his uncle's money paying off lenders and widows; I don't need him coming back for the other half. So until you finally decide to spread your legs for the Prince and get an even greater bride price for me, I beg you to _keep out of my business!_ "

Rosaline opened her mouth but no words would come. Her throat closed up in her shock and anger.

How crude, how _awful_ a man her uncle had become. His words were a slam to her chest, and she felt hot tears gather, and hated their very existence as they slipped down her cheeks. Without a word she turned and walked from the room. She walked and the pound of her feet on the stone mimicked her drumming heart. She walked until she was out of the house and the bright sun beat down on her.

Where was Benvolio? What had happened to him? He wouldn't have just… left her like this. There were still good men in this world, despite her uncle as evidence to the contrary. Benvolio was a _good_ man. Something terrible must have happened to him, kept him from keeping his word. Something terrible and those men had something to do with it. She must go to the palace. She must alert the guard. Someone. Anyone.

 _I will find you,_ she vowed silently, letting the warmth of the sun rouse her and dry the angry tears from her face. _Wherever you are, I will find you._

 

* * *

 

Isabella read the letter over again. Something about it niggled at her.      

> _My dearest Isabella, it is with a sad, but full heart I write to you, my sweet young protégé, if I may call you that. For perhaps you were the one who taught me, taught me how to live without fear. Your bravery in all things is so admirable. I saw it the very first time you allowed me to read you the poetry of Sappho at my mother's estate in Padua. Your openness and cleverness were a revelation to me that still bring me joy and comfort._
> 
> _But it pains me to say I am unable to return to Verona for my poor brother's funeral, and to see you again. You are very much in my thoughts, dearest Isabella. It pains me also to know I cannot be there for you to help with your brother's recovery and to help guide you in your role as Princess, in whatever way I can. But your beauty and your grace are undimmed by any hardship. I would give anything to be there to hold your hand in mine and take some of your glorious strength as my own. Goodbye, lovely Isabella. I hope to see you again someday, but I fear my parting may be forever._

Isabella read over the first paragraph again, her brows furrowed deeply. Though she had spent many an evening with Tessa reading and learning and enjoying the openness of another woman's thoughts and feelings, she'd never been to the Scutesi estate in Padua. Was it even in Padua? She thought she remembered it being on the outskirts of Vicenza, but of course Tessa would know better than she. But, still, Tessa must have been confusing her with another woman, which stung more than Isabella wanted to admit. She hadn't been so forgettable a pupil, had she?

But perhaps even more troubling was the second paragraph. Why did Tessa mourn this parting so? Where was she going, and why did it sound as if the very hounds of hell were chasing her into an abyss?

"What is that?" Helena had slid up behind her while she was rapt in the letter, a hand warm and smooth on Isabella's arm.

"Nothing," Isabella said. "A letter from an old friend."

"It has troubled you?" Helena leaned in and brushed a soft kiss against Isabella's cheek. "Let me untrouble you, my lady." She gently pulled the letter from Isabella's fingers with one hand and used the other to cup Isabella's jaw, turning her head and planting an even softer kiss on her lips.

"You do lighten my heart so," Isabella confessed, running her fingers up behind Helena's ear and pulling her in for a deeper kiss.

A knock on the door interrupted them, and Isabella wanted to throw something in her frustration, but settled for growling at their interrupter instead. "What is it, for God's sake?"

Helena stood and took two steps toward the other end of the room.

"A visitor, your grace," came the voice of one of her younger ladies in waiting. "Rosaline Capulet."

Before Isabella could even give the order the door to her room swung open and Rosaline swept in like a gust of wind slamming open a window. Her hair was a mess, as if she'd been running, and her cheeks were stained with tears.

"Good God, Rosaline. What has happened to you?"

"Benvolio Montague. He's gone missing."

"Missing? What are you talking about?"

Rosaline started pacing the room. Isabella could see Helena shrug at her out of the corner of her eye. Isabella could only shrug back. She loved Rosaline like a sister, but she had been known to… overreact when things slipped out of her iron-tight control.

"Rosaline."

"He was supposed to come to House Capulet today, and he hasn't. And there were the two men, the gamblers, and who knows what they're up to, and my uncle, well he's no help, as per usual, the old git—"

"Rosaline!" Isabella couldn't help her surprised laugh, despite Rosaline's clear distress. "You are going to fall over from dizziness. Here, sit." She pulled out a chair for her at her dining table. Rosaline deflated like a punctured waterskin and sat.

"I don't know where he is, Isabella."

"Where did you look?"

"Oh," Rosaline said, and turned her head around the room as if she'd only just learnt what 'looking' meant. "I hadn't looked anywhere, yet. I don't even know where to start."

"His house might be the logical choice."

Rosaline looked at her with wide eyes and then dropped her head into her hands. "Oh, Isabella. I am such the fool. Please forgive me for intruding." She moved to get up, but Isabella stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"Rosaline, you are in anguish. Tell me, what has hurt your heart so? Is it Montague? You must not concern yourself with him." She thought about the sadness that permeated the letter from Tessa. "I fear it is sundown for the Montagues in Verona."

Rosaline's unfocused gaze suddenly pierced her. "You know something of this? What are you not telling me?"

Helena had taken a step closer to them, her gaze intent. It warmed Isabella's heart to see her lady's protectiveness. "Calm yourself, Rosaline," Isabella said. "I just mean, his family are all gone. His betrothal is dissolved. His reputation is irrevocably stained. What is there to keep him here, in this place that has only brought him pain and heartbreak?"

Rosaline looked like she wanted to cry just then. A flash of guilt darkened her lovely face.

"You don't think—?" Rosaline started, but stopped herself, snapping her mouth shut. She looked up at her intently. "Have you word of any criminal types in Market Street? I know they're in this up to their fat, bearded necks."

Isabella's eyebrows shot up. Had Rosaline been drinking? She was acting erratic, flitting from one thought to the next with no connections whatsoever. She was acting… like a woman in love. Why was everyone around her—her brother, her best friend—so utterly bespelled and helpless? Could they not just love and take and have without going so moonstruck? She looked to Helena again and thanked heaven above that they had met and triumphed and loved without all this terrible agony everyone else seemed to wallow in.

"Rosaline," Isabella said, taking her hand to calm her. "I do not have a clue what you are talking about. But I will help you in any way I can."

And she meant it. She had spent the morning vaguely planning ways to help her pining brother get the woman he loved, but it looked as though the woman didn't want to be gotten, at least not by him. And Isabella, above all, could understand that.

"You know," she said, squeezing Rosaline's hand. "My brother still loves you. Has always loved you."

Rosaline's back straightened; she looked on alert, as though she were being ambushed. "That's very… generous of him," she said stiffly, clearly trying not to cause offense. Isabella couldn't help but laugh.

"I mean no harm, sweet Rosaline. I only mean to ask you—please be kind when you turn him down. I think one arrow through the chest is enough for one lifetime."

 

* * *

 

After calming herself, Rosaline bid Isabella farewell, armed at least with a promise of aid should Rosaline ever need it, even if she was still as Montague-less as ever.

Isabella's words haunted her as her footsteps echoed in the stone halls. _What was there to keep him here, in this place that had only brought him pain and heartbreak?_

Well _she_ was here, damn it. And that was just going to have to be enough for him. She refused any other outcome. And if that stubborn, infuriating, exhilarating, heartstopping man had any other answer for her, she was going to wring his perfect neck.

A pair of footsteps around the corner up ahead jumped her out of her thoughts. She'd recognize that confident gait anywhere. Escalus. Isabella's words about him haunted her too, for more guilt-ridden reasons. He loved her, and was probably thinking of some huge, romantic gesture to win her back, but how to tell him it was all in vain and not hurt him anymore than they'd already hurt each other?

The obvious answer was to hide behind a colonnade and hope he didn't see her, so that was exactly what she did. She wasn't proud of herself, but it worked. He passed without noticing her, busy in talk with Matteo about rewriting some tax document, and Rosaline breathed a sigh of relief, with just a tinge of self-loathing at her own cowardice mixed in.

But juggling Escalus's feelings with her own murkier ones was already too much of a distraction from the task at hand.

Namely: Find Benvolio Montague and bring him home. _To her_.

And this time she wasn't going to run off in a rage at her uncle, wits scattered. This time she was going to follow Isabella's sage advice and start at the logical place.

 

* * *

 

Rosaline felt her heart in her throat as she knocked at the door. She had no chaperone, no reason for being here. The rumors would outpace her back to her own home. But that mattered not.

What if he was here? What would she even say to him?

The door swung open. A serving girl looked her up and down, seemed satisfied with what she saw, and silently gestured for Rosaline to enter.

"Thank you," she said, and tried not to notice when the servant looked at her with huge eyes, as though she'd never been thanked in her life. Rosaline's heart was already torn asunder; she couldn't take any more introspection today, and pushed her feelings down. "Is the Lord of the manor in?"

The servant shook her head, then curtsied, then scuttled off, as if simple gratitude had shaken her whole world. And so Rosaline was left alone in the large, empty entrance hall. She took a deep breath, lifted the hem of her skirt, and started climbing the stairs.

She had no idea which room was his, or what she even expected to find once she was there. But maybe the young valet strolling down the hall with a full vase of flowers in his hands could assist.

"Excuse me," she said, and immediately regretted it when the valet almost dropped the flowers in his surprise. He was quick-limbed, though, and righted the vase before it could slip from his fingers.

"Signorina," he said, his voice high and trembling. She truly felt bad now.

"My sincerest apologies, Valet. Do you need any help?"

"From a lady?" He didn't mean it as an offense, she knew.

"Very well then," she said. "Perhaps you could help me. I'm looking for Benvolio Montague."

"He's not in, Signorina."

"Yes. I know. Do you know where he might have gone to?"

The valet readjusted the vase in his arms, then apparently thought better of it, depositing it on an empty pedestal a few feet behind him. "Not my business to know where he is," he said, and again she could feel no malice in his words, just that curious forthrightness found in those members of a household either so secure in their position they feared no reprisal or so unaware of their position in life they had no idea they were supposed to act as deferential as possible to those stationed above them. She took this young man as the former.

"And where might his room be then?" she asked. Perhaps using his own style of frankness was the key to getting any useful information out of him.

"Just down there," he said, thumbing behind him. "But—"

"Thank you—What is your name?"

"Sergio, Signorina."

"Thank you Sergio," she said, before skirting past him and heading toward Benvolio's room.

"Ho there!" he called out, before hustling up behind her. "Signorina, I must stop you. That is my lord's private bedchambers. Tis not for a lady's eyes!"

And now it was time to deploy a different tactic. Rosaline turned to him with as much austerity and command as she could muster. "I am the Lord's fiance, soon to be Lady of this very house, as decreed by the Prince himself. Would you renounce your Prince's orders in this way?"

"No, but still—"

"Have you seen Lord Montague yet today?"

"He must've left before his usual waking hour."

Rosaline's stomach dropped. "Or perhaps he did not return from the ball last night at all…"

The color drained from the Sergio's face. "I… no. That… that can't be right. He's been busy, running the house now."

"Answer me. Have you seen him at all since then?"

"No, but—"

"Then you will not impede my search. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Signorina." 

She kept walking and he let her go, keeping two steps behind her nevertheless. Upon entering the room it became immediately obvious that Rosaline wouldn't have had any trouble identifying it as Benvolio's.

Paintings and brushes, chisels, parchment sketches covered every surface. Drawings of buildings, the palace, the gardens, the fountain in town square, even the Capulet Duomo. Next to his bed stood a small bronze statue of a horse mid-gallop, looking regal and fluid. Rosaline looked from wall to wall, slightly overwhelmed by the sight. She wandered to his main desk, where she found a more intimate gallery of portraits. Sketches of bodies. Hands and feet. A woman's naked back. Faces she recognized as Romeo and Mercutio. One woman, over and over again. She looked familiar, and then Rosaline placed her. She worked at the bawdy house. Stella, she had been called.

The detail in them took Rosaline's breath away. These weren't careless doodles. These were done with love. Benvolio… loved Stella. Rosaline's pulse quickened. Why should it matter to her whom he loved? It didn't. Perhaps that was where he was now. With her. Now that he was freed, as her uncle had said. Maybe that's what he had been going to ask her last night, if she would allow him his freedom to pursue his own happiness. She would have said yes, if that was truly what he wanted, for he above all deserved any happiness he could find, no matter in what corner of the world.

She shuffled through the stack of Stellas, her focus slack, until she reached the very last. The parchment was at a slightly different angle than the rest, as if it had been hastily shoved to the bottom, hidden. She pulled it free. A lone figure stood, her back to the artist's view, staring at a portrait on the wall. She recognized her own shoulders, the curve of her lower back, her neck and hair. Benvolio had drawn her standing in her empty family home, gazing at a lost family, and the longing, the melancholy, the _anguish_ was all so clear in the strokes of the stick; but so too was a kind of wistful resilience. The figure had not given up hope.

Rosaline wondered at it. When on earth had he the time to draw it? They had run from the city that very same day, and soon after he was in chains. He must have drawn it from memory alone, well after that fateful day. Rosaline bit her thumb, deep in thought. The rendition was so… lovely. And so lovingly wrought. For some reason it made her want to cry.

But she'd cried enough for one day. For one lifetime. Tears were no good to her now, not when what she needed was action. And a plan. Sergio had not seen Benvolio since before the ball. It was now nearly sundown a day later. He'd been witnessed with a pair of ne'er-do-wells from Market Street. The very same Market Street where Stella worked.

It was at least a place to start. She might find him there, with the woman he loved—the image of which surely did not make Rosaline close her eyes in misery—but if he wasn't there, then at least the woman Stella might have some clue as to where to find those malicious men. But how to gain entry to the brothel without a man at her side as she'd had before? She could ask the valet, he seemed cowed by her enough. Or… she glanced around the room and her eyes alit on Benvolio's trunk.

She been told often enough she needed a man, but no one ever said that man couldn't be _her_.

 

* * *

 

A splash of water hit his face like a cold slap and Benvolio coughed himself awake. It should've shamed him that this wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. The throbbing in his ears, too. The ropes, though, that was a new thing to wake up to, save a few accusations of treason here and there. He pulled at his wrists, but they were securely tied to a metal railing behind him. He pulled again; it only made his skin burn.

"Damn."

"Watch your tongue," said a hunched old woman as she limped her way closer to him. She carried a small pail under one arm and a wedge of bread in the other. "Here. Don't want you fainting on us again." She put down the pail and ladled out a bowlful of water for him. Benvolio drank greedily, water slipping down his chin in his haste. His throat felt like it was full of dust.

He allowed himself a moment to take in the room before panic could set in. The woman looked ancient. She clearly hadn't been the one to tie him up, unless her stiff, bony fingers were hiding some magic in them.

"Who are you?" he managed to grit out.

The woman's voice was strange; her latin was crude, which wasn't unusual in a commoner, but there was something else about it. Something foreign.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that," she said, and cackled, before shoving an enormous hunk of bread into his mouth. "I'm nobody. I just bring the vittles."

Benvolio tried not to choke. He finally managed to grind the bone-dry loaf into something that could be swallowed, and his belly let out a little satisfied grumble despite the texture, consistency, and taste of the abused thing. Thankfully the crone ladled another sip of water into his mouth and he was able to get it all down.

"I fear your bread's gone a little stale," he said, unable to curb that little bit of rebellion that always got him in trouble. "In case you were taking commentary."

She chuckled, and her humor seemed genuine. A brusque old thing, but not immune to humanity, apparently. "I'll let the master know your complaints."

The master. Perhaps it was time for that panic to set in after all. Where the devil was he? Why was he tied up? What had happened last night?

There had been the funeral, and then the ball. And then Capulet, in that dress, the one she'd worn when they'd said their betrothal vows, hands bound. He had been so ready to lay his heart before her, an offering with no expectation of anything in return. A simple declaration of truth, because he had promised to always, always tell her the truth.

But he hadn't, had he? He hadn't the chance. Severin and Porfirio, those bastards, had dragged him out of there, thrown him into a carriage with—

"Where is that _wretched_ woman?" he growled out, remembering now. "I'm going to throttle her."

"Don't worry, young Montague."

Benvolio snapped his head to the open entryway. A man stood there, tall and solid-limbed, with a mane of rust-colored hair falling just past his shoulders. He spoke with the same thick-accented latin as his servant, though much better grammared.

"That 'wretched woman', as you say, isn't faring much better than you at the moment."

Benvolio's mouth gaped open and he stared, equal parts baffled and daunted.

"Who the _hell_ are you?"

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benvolio formally meets his captor; while Rosaline, joined by an unlikely ally, leaps without looking.

 

 

* * *

_Kingdom of Fife • Scotland_

_5 months ago_

* * *

 

"Are you going to stay in bed all day?"

Tessa rolled over onto her stomach, luxuriating in her naked idleness. "Mmm, perhaps. Come here, Mac. Join me." She patted the pillow next to her in invitation and blinked up at him slowly. Mac licked his lips, clearly considering. He sat down on the edge of the bed and ran his large, strong hand up her bare back. It made her shiver in anticipation.

"First of all, I've told you before, that's not a proper name here; and second, don't you want to hear my news?" He smiled like a man with a tantalizing secret.

Tessa propped herself up on an elbow and turned to him. "Is it done?" She couldn't quite keep the excitement out of her voice.

"Aye, the terrible deed is done," he said. "And now, for my payment."

Tessa scooted up behind him and draped one arm over his chest, snaking her hand neath the neckline of tunic, and planted a wet kiss just above his shoulder. "Isn't my love payment enough, darling?"

Mac turned halfway, just enough to kiss her. Tessa hummed into his mouth with pleasure. His hand was on her again, running up the back of her neck through her long hair. The other curled round to the front of her neck, and squeezed. Hard.

Tessa pulled back, and tried to gasp, but his fingers tightened even more.

" _Mac_ ," she tried to say, but his hands were keeping all her breath from her. She scrabbled at him, attempting to pry his fingers off her one by one, but it was hard to do anything in her panic. Her lungs burned with each fruitless wheeze.

"I don't need your love," Mac said, before finally releasing her. Tessa fell forward, her hand moving protectively over her neck, and sucked in as much air as her bruised and swollen throat would allow. "I need what was promised me. What you owe me. I've put my life on the line for it, you see."

Tessa coughed, and coughed, and ignored the hot tears that fell from her eyes. It was only a physical reaction she told herself. She wasn't crying.

"Alright," she finally said, lifting her head and meeting his gaze with as much force as she could muster. "It's there." She covered her chest with the sheet and pointed to her vanity.

Mac followed her hand, then looked back at her with a mixture of anger and astonishment. "It was here the whole time? Why, you accomplished little liar. I ought to finish what I started." He gestured at her neck and Tessa hated herself for flinching back at that tiniest of movements.

He laughed at her, and stood. She clutched the sheet closer to herself, but didn't lower her gaze. He should've known better than to get on her bad side. There were enough ghosts in her past to warn him of that particular error in judgment.

"The stone," Mac whispered, reaching for the box. "It shall finally be mine."

 

 

* * *

_Verona • Italy_

_5 months later_

* * *

 

Rosaline coughed very delicately. Sergio didn't seem to notice, so she tried it a little louder.

"Signorina?" he finally said, peeking his head into the room.

"Oh, Sergio." She lifted her hand to her head as if to swoon. "I am feeling quite faint, overcome with emotion for my betrothed, surrounded by all his things while he languishes somewhere, lost and alone." She thought it pretty convincing; though perhaps she didn't have to try so hard to sound distraught. "Could you fetch me some water please?"

"Of course, Signorina." Sergio moved to leave, but she stopped him.

"And a plate of fruit, if it's not too much trouble?"

"Of course, Signorina." He moved again to leave; she again stopped him.

"Fresh cut?" she asked, sniffling loudly. "I'm feeling so very sensitive right now."  

Sergio looked at her askance. "Of course, Signorina," he said, a little less pityingly this time, but nevertheless he exited. Rosaline quickly dropped her hand, swept to the door, and latched it shut. How nice for a room to lock from the inside rather than the out, she thought to herself with just the tiniest hint of bitterness. But that was a grievance for another day. She had work to do and a vexatious Montague to find.

Without preamble Rosaline stripped down to her drawers. She looked around the room for some cloth, then decided the bed sheet would have to do. She used her teeth to start the tear, then ripped a long wide strip, before wrapping it around her chest, flattening herself down. It wasn't perfect, but it would do. Time was not on her side.

She threw open Montague's trunk and started pulling out clothes. Black, black, and what's that? More black. The man knew what he liked. Halfway down, finally, a bit of color poked through. She pulled out the blue-violet doublet and placed it on the bed. It looked slightly smaller, perhaps something from his younger days. "That'll work," she murmured to herself.

Trousers, then. She pulled a pair of his long leathers and assessed them with skepticism. They could not be this small and actually fit an adult man. She slid in one leg and lost her balance, almost falling over when it stretched to her mid-thigh and stuck there. How on earth did he fit into these tight monstrosities? Well, she _had_ gotten a glimpse of that—how to say?— _petite_ posterior of his, purely by accident. A little flare of heat sparked in her at the memory, but she pragmatically ignored it as she tossed the trousers aside and dug deeper into the trunk.

"Ah, these will do." She pulled out a pair of dark hose and short breeches made in a more forgiving fabric. The ensemble was a few years out of style; it resembled something a young man of noble birth would've been forced to wear at his first appearance in court. Rosaline couldn't help but imagine him there, skinny and haughty—or would he have been shy?—when a knock on the door startled her.

"Signorina? What's going on in there?" Sergio jiggled at the handle.

"Oh, woe!" Rosaline called out loudly as she struggled one leg into the hose. "Woe is me! Oh, where is my poor Benvolio? Woe! _Woe!_ "

Sergio's sigh was loud enough to hear through the door, but he seemed to give up on trying to get in for the time being. The shadow of his feet planted under the gap of the door, but that could be dealt with later.

Rosaline slid into the breeches, laced up the front of the doublet, and slipped back into her flats. She strapped a dagger and sheath to her hip for good measure, and looked herself over as best she could. "Not too bad," she said. There was even a little pocket in the doublet for the coin purse Benvolio had carelessly left on his dresser, which she was sure he wouldn't miss. Coins successfully snatched, Rosaline loosened and re-tied her hair in a more masculine fashion, but feared the ringlets might be too much out of place. Did he have—? Yes, there was a hat. It was large and pointed and had a feather sticking out of the top. She barked out a quick laugh, picturing how silly Montague would look in it. Maybe when this was all over...

She fixed the hat over her hair, stuffed her abandoned clothes in the trunk, and turned back to the door. The shadow of Sergio's feet lingered still. That wouldn't do. How to get him out of the path to her escape? She looked round the room again. She was up too high to escape through the window, but maybe something else could exit through it instead? A clay jug sat on the sill, heavy and breakable looking.

Rosaline shrugged and lifted it. "Please, let this be not some priceless antiquity," she whispered, before dropping it out the window.

It landed with a shattering thump.

 _"What the—?"_ The pesky shadows neath the door suddenly jumped up and away and Rosaline sneaked forward as quietly as possible before unlocking the door, pulling it open slowly to risk a peek down the hall. The path was clear.

"Now or never, Ros," she whispered, pumping herself up, before racing across the corridor, down the stairs, and toward the front door. She was just reaching for it when she heard a quiet gasp from her right. The serving girl who had let her into the house had turned the corner with a tray of fresh cut fruit in her hands and the widest eyes Rosaline had ever seen. "I was just—" Rosaline started, then pointed at the door, finishing the thought without speaking.

The girl stared at her, then said quietly, but very deliberately, "Godspeed you, m'lady." Then, just as Rosaline was through the door: "The back o' the stables are sorrowfully under-watched."

Rosaline turned and mouthed a silent "Thank you!" and ran as fleet as her long legs, freed from the weight of all her skirts, could take her.

 

* * *

 

The brothel was just as Rosaline remembered it. Loud. Smelly. The air thick with steam from the baths. How anyone could stand to be there for more than a few minutes she didn't know. But at least she was inside, and one step closer to answers.

A few of the girls turned toward her, then swung their heads together and started whispering energetically. There were a few titters. Rosaline straightened her shoulders, but realized it poked her chest out a little bit too much, and decided a roguish slouch might be more convincing. "Ladies," she said, pitching her voice low and doffing her cap. The girls tittered louder.

"Is, er, Stella here?" she asked. "I mean, available?" 

"Yes, my... lord," a redheaded girl with bright red lips said, pointing to a curtained room in the back. "Go right on back, dear." All three girls burst into giggles.

Rosaline ignored their strange reaction and focused instead on the information given. Stella was alone; Montague wasn't here. Rosaline wasn't sure if the heavy feeling in her chest was worry or relief. "Um, thank you," she said. "I'll just... yes." She scooted around them and made her way to the the appointed curtain. She pulled it open, practically jumped into the room, and swung it closed behind her all in a single breath before she could lose her courage.

"Sorry," she said reflexively, before remembering to lower her voice. "I've, uh, come to see you. Just to talk though," she added quickly when Stella rose from the bed and sauntered toward her. Rosaline absolutely did not think about the drawings she'd seen of Stella in that bed, or any of the things she and Benvolio must have done together there. 

"Just to talk, my  _lord_ _?_ " Stella said, all the way up to her now, a predatory smile on her lips, assessing her. "You need not fear judgment for what you want. I've been with... others like you before, you know." She ran a delicate finger up the front of Rosaline's stolen jacket. "And it can be very, _very_ good, if you'll just allow yourself to trust—Rosaline?" Stella suddenly stopped and looked up at her, mouth agape. "Rosaline Capulet, is that you?" She took a step back, her hands on her hip. "I didn't know you were into this kind of thing."

"This kind of thing? No. Oh no, no. That's not why—how did you—?" She stopped and regrouped. "Stella. I need your help."

"My help? How on earth could I help a fine lady such as you?"

"It's Benvolio," Rosaline said, and watched as a darkness passed over the other woman. "I think something bad has happened to him."

"Bad how?" Stella averted her eyes, biting her lip, her arms crossed protectively over her middle.

"These two men, two gamblers, from around here. Something happened last night, I don't know what, but he was talking to them, and then they left, and now no one's seen or heard from him since. I'm afraid—" She tried to finish the thought, to play it out to its devastating end, but couldn't. "I'm just afraid."

"And you came here?" Stella finally looked back at her then, her eyes narrowed. 

"I thought," Rosaline started. "I thought you might know where the criminal types around here might congregate—oh that sounds so terrible. I don't mean it that way. Here—" Rosaline pulled out the coin purse. "Please. Please take this." She held it out but Stella just stared at it, then at her, before shaking her head. "Please," Rosaline begged. "Please take it."

 _You love him, don't you?_ she wanted to cry out, but self-preservation stopped her.

"No," Stella said, and gently reached out to clasp her hands around Rosaline's, tucking the purse more securely in Rosaline's grasp. "I'll help you, Rosaline; you don't need to pay me."

"What? Why not?"

Stella's eyes glassed over with tears. "I owe him," she said simply, and shrugged. "I owe him."

"Okay," Rosaline said, letting out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She felt tears of relief spring to her own eyes. "Okay. What do I do? Where do I go next?"

Stella smiled at her. "Where most of these lurid tales start. In the tavern." She wrapped her hand in the crook of Rosaline's arm and turned with her toward the curtain. "And it's not _'I'_. It's _'we'_."

 

* * *

 

The tavern was even louder and smellier than the brothel.

"Explain to me again why we had to come here together?" Rosaline whispered as they entered arm in arm. 

"Because," Stella said, "as _expert_ as your little disguise is here—" She flicked playfully at Rosaline's be-feathered hat. "—in case anyone were inclined to take a closer look, they'd be a little too busy staring at my duckies to even notice you at all." She shimmied a little bit and indeed every eye in the near vicinity fell upon her barely covered bosom.

Rosaline blushed and snapped her head up, embarrassed to be caught staring with the rest of the louts. 

"Understood," Rosaline said as they sat themselves at a table near the back. "So, think you those men are here?"

"If they're the men I'm thinking of—a tall dimwitted oaf and his slimy little friend—then yes. If not right now, then sometime soon."

Rosaline turned her head, seeking out their familiar unsettling faces, but to no avail. The serving woman approached them with two steins and Stella draped herself over Rosaline's shoulder, her mouth incredibly close to Rosaline's ear. "Play along," she whispered, and her breath was warm and damp on Rosaline's skin. 

Rosaline dropped her head down to hide her wide-eyed surprise, and that was when she saw the names carved into the wood of their table.  _Romeo. Mercutio. ~~B~~ /`|  ~~v~~ /` ~~/~~   ~~i~~ o_. The first two names were etched into the wood with the flair and precision of an artist. The third name was stabbed at with the crude clumsiness of a man in despair. She knew immediately that all were done by the same hand. She ran her fingers over the marred name and felt an incredible sadness. Could not he have one day of happiness before the world bruised him yet again? 

"Quick," Stella said urgently, lifting Rosaline's chin. "Kiss me."

"Wha—?" She could barely get the word out before Stella's soft lips were on hers. Rosaline froze, but didn't move away. Stella cupped her face, pecked her lips a few more times, then pulled back just enough to look Rosaline in the eyes. She kept her smooth palms on Rosaline's cheeks.

"Oh. Um. Wow," Rosaline managed. "That was... what was that for?"

"I think your fellows just arrived. Didn't want them getting too close a look in case they recognized you."

"Oh," Rosaline whispered. "What are they doing now?"

"Drinking."

"What should we do?"

Stella's hands were warm and strong on her face. Rosaline could see the appeal, understood why they inspired such beautiful art and such ardent devotion, even if it left her a little empty inside to follow that thought any further.

"They've split up," Stella whispered. "Keep your face hidden. I'll take the big one. You take the little one."

"And do what, exactly?" Rosaline said, but Stella was already up, a determined look on her face. "I guess I'll take the little one then," she said to absolutely no one.

The little one—and it was definitely the man from last night; Rosaline recognized his rat-face—wandered past her and into a darkened room in the back. Probably the latrine, Rosaline thought, scrunching up her nose in disgust. Stella was already across the room, practically in the lap of the larger man, cooing something into his hairy ear.  _What we do for love_ , Rosaline thought to herself, before carefully following the little guy.

Rosaline peeked her head in. As expected, he was stood over the privy trench, one hand against the wall, relieving himself with his head slack and his eyes closed. Rosaline wondered how to even approach him. Should she offer him money? Now that she'd found them a timid voice inside her was begging her to go to the Prince and plead for his help. And tell him what, exactly? That there are men drinking in a tavern, please arrest them? He'd demanded cold hard proof before, and what had she to offer him now? No, she was on her own again.

Her hand went to her hip; she felt the dagger there. Could she? She squared her shoulders. A bolder voice prevailed. Yes; she could.

Quietly, she unsheathed the dagger and stood herself behind the man. He was at a height with her, which made what she had to do a little easier. He was also at his most vulnerable, pants and trousers round his ankles, mind elsewhere. This man knew something, she reminded herself. He might have hurt Benvolio. Before she could change her mind, she shot her hand around the front of him and grabbed one of his wrists tight, pulling it behind him, then with her other hand placed her dagger just above his exposed privates. She used the weight of her body to keep him pinned one-armed against the wall, lest he try to move his other hand and fall.

"Don't move," she growled, voice as deep as she could make it.

His hips jumped forward slightly and she could feel the flat of the dagger pinch into his sensitive skin.

"I warned you," she said. He squeaked, clearly a little drunk already.

"What in bleeding hell are you doing, you maniac?"

Rosaline gripped his wrist tighter. "Where is Benvolio Montague?"

"Who?" The dagger pressed down just a little bit more. "Ah—ah—ah—oh, Benvolio? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Montague. I know him. What do you want with him?"

"I want to know what you've done to him."

"Me? Ow. Shit." She pressed him harder against the wall. "Okay, alright. Alright. I'll tell you. Just lay off, okay?"

"Tell me everything you know and I'll let you go."

"Okay, okay. Okay."

"Start. Talking." Both of her hands hurt with the pressure she was using to hold him in place. She wasn't sure how much longer she could do this. This was probably a terrible idea. But something deep within her urged her on, kept her strength up. Benvolio needed her.

"It was the other Montague," the man squeaked out.

"What do you mean? What other Montague?"

"Tessa. Tessa Montague. She came here, gave us the gold. It was her what paid us to take him."

"Take him? Take him _where?_ " She had been right; this was no drunken relapse.

"Aghh!" The dagger may have pinched in slightly deeper than she intended. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you. Please. Just get your bleeding knife away from me pecker."

" _Now_ ," she said, and he spilled like a jug of water hitting the floor.

 

Armed with her dagger and the vital information she needed, Rosaline raced from the tavern and practically leapt onto her stolen horse.

"Oi! Capulet!" she heard Stella call out from inside, but there was no time. She had to go.

She urged the horse on and they raced down the darkened streets, toward the city gates, and finally out into the open fields. She had no time to think anything except one repeating thought, over and over again, in time with the horse's pounding gallops.

_I'm coming for you. I'm coming._

 

* * *

 

Benvolio shifted on the floor and tugged at his restraints again, managing only to chafe the skin of his wrists even more. He was in some sort of parlor room, though all the furniture was covered with sheets to keep off the dust. A shame his captor hadn't cleared off a settee or a couch for him to sit on, instead of plunking him on the cold, stone floor.

"How rude of me," the man said, moving closer. "I know your name, but mine is still unknown to you. Allow me to introduce myself. Beithir Mac Findlaích, at your service." He bowed dramatically. "I would shake your hand, but I see you're a tad indisposed at the moment. Apologies, but I do need you to stay right there, just for a little while."

Benvolio shook his head slowly, completely lost. His head still ached, fuzzy from the blows he'd taken. "What is this about? What do you want?"

Mac Findlaích circled closer, hands clasped behind his back. "Only what I'm owed," he said cryptically.

"I don't even know you. How could I owe you anything?"

"Ah, young lad. Again, I do apologize. It seems you've been pulled into quite the torrid little affair here, much against your will." He circled again. It was making Benvolio dizzy, so he closed his eyes. "Did you know," Mac Findlaích continued, " _apparently_ the King of Scotland frowns upon it when you kill his brother? Suddenly you're a villain who is to be drawn and quartered." Scotland? That would explain the accent, Benvolio thought, but not much else. "I guess that's fair," Mac Findlaích said, his voice growing harder, "but you know what isn't fair? Doing a job and not getting paid for it. Isn't that right, my love?"

Suddenly there was a thump as something heavy hit the floor, followed by a muffled cry of pain. Benvolio's eyes shot open.

Crumpled there in all her finery was his aunt, her mouth gagged, her hands tied in front of her. He'd known she was involved in this somehow when she'd taken him last night, but this was the last thing he'd been expecting. Everything was so upside-down he didn't even know how to feel shocked anymore.

"I'm sorry," he said to Mac Findlaích, "please catch me up here. What on earth are you talking about? And how is this cow involved?"

Mac Findlaích chuckled and looked at Benvolio approvingly. It made Benvolio's skin crawl, and he immediately regretted aligning himself somehow with this blackguard, even if it was in the service of slandering Tessa.

"I can tell you the whole story, if you like," said Mac Findlaích.

"Please don't," said Benvolio.

"Brphhprhhio," said Tessa from the floor.

"Quite a piece of work, your aunt," Mac Findlaích said, walking back over to Tessa and kicking just the slightest amount of dust in her face. "Did she ever tell you how her husband died?"

"Which one?" Benvolio said.

Mac Findlaích continued as if he hadn't heard him. "That poor old sucker, Donalbain. Married a snake and got the venom. The King's doctor declared it some foul act of witchcraft, but forsooth it was her poison that did him."

Benvolio looked over at Tessa. "You _really_ should stop poisoning people."

"Now here's where she's a clever little thing," said Mac Findlaích. "She never does the deed herself. Always gets someone else to do the terrible thing. I was conscripted to take out the husband and now you, my lad, have been conscripted too. She sold you out. Traded her own freedom for yours, or at least that's what she thought when she brought you here to me. Here—" He gestured at someone just outside the door.

"Brought me here to do what, exactly?" Benvolio dreaded whatever answer might be given.

The old serving woman shuffled back into the room. This time instead of water and bread she carried a small wooden box. Mac Findlaích took it from her, turning it over in his hands as if to inspect it. Then he proffered it to Benvolio, as if he could take it, as if his hands weren't trussed.

"Show me how to open it," Mac Findlaích said, shrugging. "That's it. That's all I need."

Benvolio blinked at him.

A box. He was here to open a box.

What did Mac Findlaích need Benvolio for? This was madness. Utter madness. Benvolio felt any hope of getting out of this in one piece slowly shrivel up. There was no talking his way out of the grips of a lunatic. He was going to die here, and all because some barmy, murderous Scot didn't know how boxes worked.

"I don't understand. Is it stuck? Can't you just pry it open or smash it on the floor?"

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you," said Mac Findlaích. "No. I know all your secrets, Montague. I know about the incendiary trap in there. I can hear it." He shook the box next to Benvolio's ear. Something clinked inside, like small bits of metal. "One piece of the puzzle out of place and the whole thing goes up in flames. No more map. No more stone."

Benvolio was going to die here and he'd never even told Capulet he loved her.

"You're mad," he said, his heart breaking for all his lost chances.

Mac Findlaích tsked and moved away from Benvolio, closer to Tessa. "You seem like a good enough man. Show me how to open it."

"I don't know how."

Tessa screamed through her gag as Mac Findlaích landed a kick to her midsection. Benvolio flinched back, horrified. "Stop!"

" _Show me how to open it!_ "

"Untie me and I'll try!" Benvolio may have hated his aunt for what she and his uncle had done to his father, hated her negligence and her coldness and her cruelty when he'd needed someone to love and care for him, may have wished her dead on more than one occasion since finding out how truly despicable she was; but now that the possibility was before him, in vivid color, he felt sick to his stomach.

Mac Findlaích shook his head, then knelt down next to Tessa. He grabbed her by the hair and she shrieked as he lifted her to kneeling. Tears streamed down her dirty, ashen face. "Show me how to open it." A flash of silver, and then there was a knife to Tessa's throat. Mac Findlaích reached up a finger and hooked it around the cloth gag, pulling it free. "Any last words darling, before I bleed you like a pig?"

"It's yours," she said, each word scratchy and rough as if pulled through gravel. She looked directly at Benvolio, her whole body trembling. "The box. It's yours."

"What?" He shook his head. She was delirious. Maybe they both were.

"You _know_ how to open it. Benvolio, _please_ ," she begged, voice breaking. "You're the only one who can."

 

* * *

 

In Verona, in a quiet house on a quiet night, Livia Capulet had just changed for bed, pulling down her sheets, when an urgent knocking at her door startled her.

"Miss! Miss!"

She went to the door an opened it. The new serving girl, the one who had replaced Carolina, stood in the doorway, her eyes wide and her hands fisted in front of her in nervousness. 

"Yes, Lucetta, what is it?" Livia was a little too tired to keep the annoyance out of her voice, and she forgave herself for it, just this once. It was terribly late, and she'd spent all evening waiting up for Rosaline, who'd gallivanted off to who knew where this time. 

"There's a woman at the door," Lucetta said, her hands still twisting. "She won't go away. She says she has to speak with you. I'm so sorry, miss."

"What woman?" Livia grabbed her sleep gown closer to her and moved into the hallway, trying to peek down the stairs to the main landing.

"I don't know, miss. She isn't no proper lady like you, that's for sure."

"And she didn't say what she wanted?"

"I wouldn't a bothered you, miss, except she said it was about your sister," Lucetta said.

"My sister?" Livia quickly grabbed a dressing gown and draped it over her shoulders. She kept herself from flying down the stairs, but only just. She had been trying, of late, to curb her impulses, as they had gotten her so embroiled in scandal and heartbreak in the past.

The mysterious woman stood in the main hall, shifting from foot to foot. Her blonde curls lay loose over her shoulders, and her cheeks and lips were painted with pink rouge. She clutched at her cloak as if assailed by heavy winds.

"Yes?" Livia said, stepping toward the woman cautiously. "How can I help you?"

"Are you the younger Capulet?" the woman asked, her words tumbling out fast and nervous. "Sister to Lady Rosaline?"

"Yes?" Livia said. What on earth was going on?

"I'm so sorry!" the woman said, grabbing Livia's hands and practically throwing herself at her. "I'm afraid I may have helped your sister do something very,  _very_ stupid."

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My dude Mac Findlaích is a nod to the show's implication, I _think_ , that Tessa is _possibly_ Lady Macbeth (mismatched time periods aside), but I've never seen or read that particular play so am not able to confidently make that same implication, and am instead going a different route. MacFindlaeg is the patronym for the historical figure of Macbethad, according to the internet. No libraries were consulted to confirm any of this.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Secrets are revealed, puzzles are solved, and lovers may be reunited. But danger awaits around every corner.

 

 

 

"You really want me to go in there?" Stella asked. She hesitated at the palace entrance. She'd told Livia everything she knew; she really didn't see why she couldn't just be on her way.

"Yes," said Livia, her stubborn face set. "I absolutely do." If Stella thought the eldest Capulet was a handful, she hadn't known how bad it could actually get.

"It's so late, though. You do it," she said, turning around quickly to head back down the stairs, only to be stopped by Livia's hand on her arm. "I can't go in there," Stella said. "It's too... fancy. They won't believe me. I'm nothing. I'm just a—"

"You're a brave woman," Livia said, gripping her arm, but not to hurt her. It was more like an encouragement. "You didn't have to come to me and tell me what happened, but you did. You didn't have to help my sister, but you did."

"Much good that did."

"Come on," Livia said, and smiled, and Stella cursed these Capulet beauties for being so persuasive.

"Fine."

Livia spoke quietly to the guards while Stella kept a few paces back, and then they were granted entry to the vaunted, splendorous halls.

Stella tried not to gawk, as she was sure this was nothing special to the titled class, but she couldn't help but swing her head around to take in every tapestry, every gleaming wall of marble, every magnificent statue. "Cor," she said under her breath, in awe. There sure was a lot of wealth in this world to spend on fancy walls when all she wanted was a full plate of food and a soft bed to lay her head on.

Eventually they stopped in front of a beautiful carved wooden door. Two more guards flanked it.

"We're here to see the Princess," Livia said. "Tell her it's Livia Capulet, and tell her it's urgent."

One of them stood and turned down the hall, every movement regimented.

"Where's he off to?" Stella whispered, more to herself than Livia.

The guard quickly returned with a young woman, sleepy looking and a little rumpled, but clearly still a fancy lady. She quietly opened the wooden door and closed it behind her again.

"That's one of the Princess's ladies-in-waiting," Livia whispered to her, and Stella wanted to bristle at needing a lesson in noble doings, as if any of this mattered to her, but secretly appreciated the insight.

A few moments later the door opened and the Princess was there, looking regal and fine. Stella curtsied by instinct. The Princess looked them both over, then gestured for them to follow her into her room. "Come," she commanded.

Stella hesitated, but Livia grabbed her by the hand and practically pulled her in behind.

The Princess sat at a small table and looked expectantly at them. Stella could see the bedclothes were disheveled; they'd woken her. She was going to be put in the stocks for this, she was sure.

"Helena tells me you have urgent news," the Princess said, looking toward Livia. Helena, the lady who had preceded them into the room, stood behind her, one hand on the Princess's back as if to hold her up.

"Yes, we do," Livia replied, then nudged Stella by the shoulder. "Tell her," she urged.

"Your grace," Stella said, then curtsied again, much to her chagrin. She misliked being this nervous and out of her element. She was never speaking to another Capulet ever again. "Benvolio Montague has been abducted."

The Princess sat forward. "That's what Rosaline said this afternoon."

Livia balked next to her. "She was here?"

"She was going to go look for him at his house," the Princess said. "Did she find something?"

"Yeah, a whole mess of trouble," Stella said, then winced at her own pertness.

"What mean you? What has happened?"

"Rosaline and I," Stella said, trying to stop her hands from pulling at the fabric of her cloak nervously. "Rosaline wanted to find these two men, Severin and Porfirio they're called. Well, she didn't know that, but she told me what they looked like and I went with her to the tavern—"

"Rosaline went into a tavern?"

"And a brothel!" Livia piped in, a cauldron of nervous energy next to her.

"Well, she was disguised as a man," Stella said. At this, the Princess sat forward even more. She was likely to fall out of her seat if she went any further. Stella continued. "So we went to the tavern, and the two men were there, as expected. I went to speak with Porfirio, and Rosaline followed Severin."

"And?"

"And I don't know what Rosaline said or did to Severin, but afterward she blew out of there like the wind."

"Know you where she went?"

"Yes, well, I think so." Stella said. "The thing is... I had already _persuaded_ Porfirio to tell me what had happened. But before I could tell the tale to Rosaline, she was gone. Took her horse and flew."

Livia reached over and gripped her hand again. "Tell her what Porfirio said."

"They took him," Stella said, and felt a lump grow in her throat. "Benvolio. That great beast practically bragged it to me. They beat him and they tied him up and they took him."

"Where? Why?"

"Tessa Montague paid them to!" Livia cut in, her voice high and shivering with anger. "You can never trust a Montague! They devour even their own!"

The Princess stood then, and paced two steps, her hands pressed to her belly as if to keep them from lashing out. "Tessa did this?"

"Aye," said Stella, trying to steer the conversation back on track. Livia was practically steaming next to her. "He said she paid them gold to knock out her nephew and take him to an abandoned house outside Vicenza. I'm sure that's where Rosaline is headed now, by herself, like a loon." Like a woman in love, more like. It was bittersweet, that thought. Stella imagined herself being brave enough to love. It wasn't something she often gave herself leave to do; it bruised her too much. If she _were_ to love... it could have been Benvolio. But she'd hurt him, badly, and he deserved better. She hoped Rosaline was true of heart, and she hoped she was safe, wherever she was now. She hoped they both were, but she'd lived a life that'd prevented her from ever hoping too much.

The Princess had halted her pacing and stared at them both. "Montague was taken to Vicenza? Are you sure?"

"Aye," said Stella. "I'm certain."

"Then I think... I know exactly where they are," the Princess said, grabbing a piece of parchment—a letter—off her bedside table, before marching toward the door, her lady Helena a pace behind her.

Stella and Livia glanced at each other, made a silent agreement, and quickly followed after.

 

* * *

 

Rosaline flew through the huge expanse of the Montague grazing pastures, past the southeast edge of the Royal Wood, over the rocky swell of Heart's Field—named so a hundred years ago as the favored trysting place for secret lovers—and finally into the wilderness. Her horse, a beautiful silver mare, followed her every command and movement almost before she made it, as if she too knew the way to Vicenza and Benvolio.

Rosaline almost lost her hat before pulling it from her head and crushing it under her arm, close to her body. It was such a stupid thing, but it was  _his_ , and she couldn't bear the thought of tossing it aside as if it were nothing.

She rode. She rode until her horse quivered beneath her and needed a rest. Rosaline found a creek and dismounted, leading the horse to water and grass. The moon was high in the night sky; the stars shone like beacons.

Rosaline sat and clutched the doublet closer to herself, ruing her lack of a cloak yet again. Not only did she shiver in the cold, but she couldn't help but remember the night she had spent with Benvolio on their desperate quest to find Friar Lawrence. His arm had been so strong and comforting around her. His body had been warm and soft and inviting. She had fought it at the time, telling herself she hated every minute of it, but what she wouldn't give right now to feel his arms around her again. To hear his heart beating beneath his chest. To rest her head against him and sleep, knowing she was safe, maybe even loved. She rested her head against her own arm now, trying to find comfort in her own strength. She took a deep breath; her borrowed clothes smelled of him.

 _God_ , she missed him. He had burrowed his way somehow into her heart and now she felt the emptiness of the curving path he'd left behind.

She rested her body, but not her mind. Her thoughts twisted over and over themselves, trying to make sense of what had happened, what she was doing, what she _felt_ , why she had run off by herself instead of remembering Isabella's promise to aid her. She was a fool. She could still turn back, get help, come back for him. But she'd lose a whole day if she did, and if something happened to him while she dithered, she'd never forgive herself. She'd let him down before; she could not do it again. Not while she still had strength in her body and love in her heart.

After an hour's rest she finally stood, and stretched her aching limbs, and remounted the horse. She rode at a slower gallop, hoping to keep the horse fresh. It would be cruel to push the animal beyond its limits; it had only the misfortune to be the first creature she had seen in the Montague stables and had no choice in this matter. And this was the only horse she had. 

After another few miles, the sky began to lighten with the first hints of dawn. Rosaline had to be close. She saw a group of buildings up ahead on the road and her stomach grumbled loudly. The horse's trots quickened on their own. They both felt the need to stop and refuel.

Rosaline approached the main building. It was an inn and tavern, just as she'd hoped. Around the side were stables, and she paid the sleepy stable boy a copper coin to take her horse and see to its needs.

The inside of the inn was warm; a fire crackled in the main dining room. Rosaline felt all the coldness shake out of her limbs as the warmth embraced her. She placed her crushed hat back on her head, though the feather wouldn't straighten as much as she liked, and ordered bread, a plate of cheese, and apples. The tray came out a few minutes later, accompanied by a mug of warm mead. Rosaline thanked the keep and felt her strength surge with each replenishing bite.

The keep, an older man with long white sideburns, came back to refill her mead. Rosaline turned to him.

"Sir, have you any knowledge of this land?"

"Aye, young sire," he said, and wiped down the table next to her. "Lived here my whole life."

"Know you of an empty manor house roundabouts? If it might be nearby, and in what direction?"

"Ah," the keep said, and rubbed his stubbled chin. "You're speaking of old House Scutesi, sounds like. The family married into a grander place in Verona City, and ne'er do come out to these lesser parts. Don't know why they don't sell the place, to be quite honest with you."

Rosaline felt her spirits rise; goose-flesh raised all up and down her arms in anticipation. "And is it very far?"

The keep pointed northwest, toward his bar. "Just a mile or so up the road, young sire."

Rosaline thanked him and asked for a cloth to take an extra ration of food with her, then left a few gold coins on the table before heading back out to the stables. Her heart threatened to pound right out of her chest. She was so close to finding him. To taking him in her arms and telling him all the things she had been keeping too close, too hidden, even from herself.

Her horse whinnied at her, but seemed content to take her onto her strong back again. Rosaline reached around and gave the horse a piece of apple for her trouble, then remounted. She followed the road until she came to a fork. A road jutted west; wagon wheel divots could just barely be seen in the dirt, as if it had been well-used, but only a long while past. She gently urged her horse on.

Just a few minutes later the manor house rose before her, a dark shape against the predawn sky. It was large and regal, but the grounds were unkempt. A round silo, tall and made of stone, loomed next to it, ominous and forbidding.

She slowed. She didn't know what she was walking into. Torchlight on the main floor shone through the slats of the boarded up windows. Someone was definitely in the house. The question was how many someones, and how armed they were.

Tessa had hired men to grab Benvolio; it was likely she had more to subdue him. Perhaps Rosaline could draw them out somehow, cause a distraction and leave a path open to her. But that would leave only the smallest amount of time for escape, and there was no way her poor horse, after running all night, could do so again but with two riders instead of one.

No, Rosaline would need to be more patient. She had to get inside, unseen and unheard, and wait for an opportunity to get to him.

She slid carefully off her horse and walked it to the dark side of the house, behind the large stone edifice of the silo. She wrapped the reins round a tree branch and fed the horse another apple, in case this took longer than expected.

She wrapped around the back of the house, toward the servants' entrance. If there was one thing her time as a servant had been good for, it was familiarity with all the ins and outs of a villa. She slipped into the kitchen, keeping her steps light. She skirted quietly around the first corner, then jumped back into the darkness when she heard two male voices. They were speaking a language she didn't understand, something Germanic and guttural. It made them sound more like monsters than men, and Rosaline's pulse raced while she waited, holding her breath, hoping for them to move on without coming her way. Sweat beaded on her forehead and gathered under her arms. She gripped the wall behind her with the pads of her fingers to keep herself steady.

Finally their voices dissipated, and Rosaline tiptoed back into the hall. A sick feeling pooled in her stomach, but she used it to spur her on. She followed the hall closer to the front of the house, in the direction the men had come from.

Up ahead, by a large open room and a sprawling staircase, Rosaline could see a light coming through a door just slightly ajar. She inched closer. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Every breath sounded like a tempest in the quiet of the house.

Closer to the door, she heard it. Latin. Two male voices. She edged as close as possible and tilted her ear toward the opening.

 _"It's a damned shame,"_ spoke an unfamiliar, deep voice,  _"you have no one left to come find you."_

 

* * *

 

Benvolio helplessly watched Tessa struggle not to move, lest she incur the wrath of the knife-wielding man clutching her to him.

"The box is mine?" he asked.

"Your father," Tessa said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "He gave you that box, before he... died." She at least had the decency to sound slightly ashamed speaking the word. "He taught you how to open it."

Benvolio looked at the box and his mind started furiously putting the pieces together. He had been a boy, sitting on his father's lap, counting out triangles on the top of the puzzle box. His father made him count aloud, and made him memorize... what? He had to memorize something about the triangles. His father had been so kind, so patient with him, his voice full of love. Benvolio felt a tear slide down his cheek.

"It's a puzzle," Mac Findlaích offered, intruding on Benvolio's memories.

 _This is your legacy, Benvolio,_ his father had said, running his strong hands through Benvolio's hair. _It holds the secret to every man's happiness._

"You have to push the pieces into place," he continued. 

"There are twenty-nine of them," Benvolio said, lifting his gaze to Mac Findlaích. "There are twenty-nine triangles. And you have to slide them in an exact order."

" _Yes_ ," Mac Findlaích said, his eyes ablaze and his mouth curving into a wide, ugly grin. "He remembers. Oi, boys!" he called out to a door on the opposite end of the room. Two men entered, swords at their sides. "Come here and make sure this snake doesn't slither free." He let Tessa drop back to the floor. She broke her fall with her tied hands and snarled up at the men who approached her. They each grabbed one side of her under the arms and easily lifted her to standing. One of them pulled his sword and pressed the flat edge across her chest in warning.

"Tell me the order, boy," Mac Findlaích said, holding the box in his brutish hands and leaning in above Benvolio.

Benvolio looked at the box. His fingers twitched behind him. He could remember only the action, not the sight of it.

"I need to do it myself," he said. Mac Findlaích's lip curled into a sneer and he looked ready to strike. "No!" Benvolio said quickly. "I'm telling the truth. My hands remember more so than my mind. I can open it for you, I promise. And I'll let you have whatever's inside."

 _The secret to every man's happiness_.

"Please," he said. "Untie me and you'll have what you came for." He looked over at Tessa. She stared at him with her chin held high, every bit the imperious shrew she always was, but her hands were trembling. "You don't have to hurt her," he said to Mac Findlaích, hating himself only the slightest bit for caring at all about her well-being when she'd never done the same for him, not even when he was a helpless child. "I'll do what you say."

Mac Findlaích narrowed his eyes, then raised his dagger. Benvolio was proud of himself for not flinching, especially when the knife went behind him to cut through the rope holding his hands.

Benvolio pulled his arms free and rubbed his aching wrists. He mirthlessly thought he should be used to the feeling by now.

"Know you the practice of alchemy, young Montague?" Mac Findlaích said, reluctantly offering him the puzzle box. "The transmutation of elements?"

"I've heard of it," said Benvolio, holding the familiar weight of the box between his hands. He caressed the smooth, lacquered sides. It smelled piney and like _home_. He hadn't seen this box in years, hadn't even thought about it. After his father's death and funeral, he remembered hiding it away; it was too painful to hold something that had been his father's, that was so closely associated with him and his kind voice when Benvolio's new life consisted only of doing whatever his aunt and uncle asked of him as they took over the house, treating him like a stray dog that had wandered in and they took the barest amount of pity on.

 _You have nothing that isn't mine,_ his uncle had said. It was true. They'd taken even his good memories of his father and made them unbearable. He glanced over at Tessa and felt a rage simmer inside him.

"For centuries alchemists have been looking for an undiscovered element," Mac Findlaích was saying. "And the ability to turn any metal into gold."

Benvolio looked back up at him. "Fascinating," he said. "But complete nonsense. You know that, right?"

Mac Findlaích laughed, the force of it strong enough to throw his head back. Benvolio thought for just that half-second of distraction of running as fast and as far as he could, but a pitiful sounding cry from his aunt stopped him.

"Know you what _is_ unbelievable, young Montague? That a family of lowly sheep herders could, so suddenly, over the course of just one generation, become one of the richest families in Europe. That, to me, is _fascinating_ , as you put it."

Benvolio's fingers halted the progress they had instinctively started making on the inlaid wooden puzzle. "My great-grandfather saved up his wages and bought a parcel of land from the Capulets," he said. "That is all."

"That is decidedly not all," Mac Findlaích said, his voice dripping with smug superiority. "The only reason your pathetic little family has any worth to this world at all is because of the stone."

"You keep saying that. What stone? We have no stone."

" _Lapis philosophorum,_ " Mac Findlaích said, his voice full of wonder and greed. "The stone of the philosophers, you witless clotpoll. Only the most coveted substance in the entire world. After your aunt told me the tale, I came here. I came here and heard the rumors for myself. Your forebears found it, _somehow_ , and shaved off bits of it to make their riches. They kept its location hidden except on a single map passed down from first born son to first born son. Your father was a first born son, was he not?" Mac Findlaích's voice dripped with feigned concern. "Such a shame for him to die so young, and under such mysterious circumstances."

Benvolio stopped again. His jaw clenched painfully as he tried his hardest to keep his rage under control.

"I'll thank you to keep my father out of this," he said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, apologies." Mac Findlaích's hand went to his chest theatrically. "Have I touched a sore spot?"

Benvolio ignored him and concentrated on the puzzle again. He needed to count and slide just the same way he had practiced so many times as a child.

"Fourteen, fifteen, _sixteen_..." he whispered to himself.

Mac Findlaích paced the room, then sat himself on a sheet-covered chair, his thick leg hanging over one of the arms. Tessa continued to whimper; Benvolio looked at her askance while he worked. He could tell, only just, that it was mostly an act. There was something clever and calculating happening behind his aunt's tear-filled eyes. Ever the crafty polecat, she was.

Benvolio slid the twenty-ninth triangle into place. There was a snap, and then a crack, as two levers popped out of hidden compartments on each side of the lid. Benvolio slowly pushed them halfway back in and felt them catch. Then he lifted the top and looked inside.

A pair of thick gold-plated rings overlapped each other in the bottom corner of the box. He reached for them but the box was suddenly ripped from his grasp. Mac Findlaích stared down at the contents, then felt around all the edges of the inside.

"Where is it?" he said, his voice coming out high and fast. "Where is the map?" He lifted out the rings and inspected them. "Tessa. Darling." He spoke through clenched teeth, then threw the rings at her face. She only just ducked in time. The rings clanked against the wall and then rolled away from it, towards Benvolio's feet.

"This isn't what you promised me." Every word was slow and dangerous. Tessa's eyes grew wide, and this, Benvolio could tell, was honest emotion. She truly did not know where the map was, or why it wasn't where it was supposed to be.

"Mac!" she cried. "I swear to you. I didn't know!"

The cracking sound of his hand hitting the wall next to her head made Benvolio flinch. But he didn't get up, for the two men with swords had moved between him and Mac Findlaích, their blades raised. Benvolio kept his hands up and pushed his back more firmly against the wall behind him.

A glint of light off one of the rings caught his eye. He tried to get a closer look without moving too much. He thought he might've recognized them... Yes, from a family portrait, adorning the fingers of his father and mother. The same rings were in all the family portraits, going three generations back to his great-grandfather, he who had bought the Capulet land and freed their family.

He remembered now. The rings were wed gifts, passed down from first born son to first born son.

His father had removed his ring, Benvolio recalled, after his mother had died. Benvolio had been too young to ask why.

"Are these part of the map?" Mac Findlaích was yelling now, holding the other ring up to Tessa's face while she cowered. " _Tell me!_ "

"Stop it," Benvolio said, trying to keep his voice calm. Mac Findlaích turned to him, his eyes wild and blazing. "Can't you see? She has poisoned you, too. With this fairy tale." This was his last gambit, and he had to try it, even if he knew in his heart it would fail. "She stoked this rapacious need for gold and power, and it has ruined you. I can see it; you used to be a good man. But your very soul has been _polluted_ by greed." Benvolio shook his head, his hands still raised in surrender. "It's not too late. You could be good again. Please. Just... let us go. You can see now, can't you? There is no stone? You have been blinded."

He slowly reached down and picked up the second ring, holding it gently between his thumb and forefinger. "These are but family heirlooms. 'The secret to every man's happiness.'"

" _No_ ," Mac Findlaích roared, then reached for the ring in Benvolio's hands, inspecting them together again. "You see, boys," he said, a little bit of panic in his voice. "There are stones in these rings. That is the key. You'll see. That is what we came for." He unsheathed his dagger again and started prying the inlaid stones out of both rings. Once he had the small gems, he pocketed them and reached for the front of Tessa's dress, dragging her to him.

With his other hand he tossed the rings on the floor at Benvolio's feet.

"You two." He pointed distractedly at Benvolio. "Tie him up again then ready the horses."

As soon as their swords were down Benvolio struggled, but well-fed and well-rested, they easily subdued him.

"You can't just leave me here!" he yelled out after his wrists had been re-tied and the rope fastened to the metal railing behind him. He thrashed and pulled, but neither metal nor rope would budge.

"I most certainly can," Mac Findlaích said. "It's a damned shame you have no one left to come find you. Come along Tessa." He pulled her coarsely by the neckline of her dress toward the door at the opposite end of the room. She tried to kick at him, but he easily evaded her. "It's time to pay the piper, one way or another."

 

* * *

 

Benvolio lolled his head against the wall and ignored the pain of the metal bar digging into his back.

His life was possibly the most pathetic in existence. He was going to die here, alone. Mac Findlaích was right. Who could possibly be coming for him? No one in Verona had probably even realized he was gone, and even if they had, how were they ever to find him?

One of Mac Findlaích's men stepped back into the room. Benvolio didn't even bother to lift his head or open his eyes.

"What do you want now?" he said.

"Montague, it's me."

Benvolio opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling. He tried to wrap his brain around the words he had just heard.

Finally he rocked his head forward and looked at her.

"Capulet." He started laughing. He started laughing so hard tears rolled down his cheeks in great waves. "Capulet, is that really you? Have I been knocked out again?"

"It's me," she said, and knelt next to him. A soft hand came up to his cheek to wipe away the wetness. He pressed his face into her palm and laughed again, then he pulled back and really looked at her, head to toe.

"Capulet. What on earth are you wearing? Is that my kit?"

"Maybe not the most important topic at the moment," Capulet said.

"I disagree," he said, and laughed again. He was going crazy. This couldn't actually be happening. But her hands were warm on his arm as she reached behind him for the ropes.

"Here, let me get these for you."

He needed out of these ropes. He needed to touch her. To grab her and hold her. He needed to feel her next to him, on top of him, all around him.

But nothing seemed to be happening. "Capulet?" he said, and she groaned in frustration.

"I can't reach around to find the knot."

He could feel her scrabbling at his wrists, and it was almost enough. Almost. He breathed out and tried to calm his beating heart.

"How did you even find me? It's not safe here. You shouldn't be here."

"Look, Montague," she said, dropping his wrists. "It's been a long day, okay? Can you just let me take care of this and lecture me later?"

"Okay," he said, smiling. By God, he loved her. "The knot is higher."

"What?"

"They only wrapped the rope at my wrists. The knot itself is up there." He tried to shrug his shoulders up. "At the metal railing."

"Oh," Capulet said. She tried to reach up behind him to his shoulders but couldn't seem to fit both hands into the small crevice between him and the wall. "This isn't going to work. I have to—let me just—here."

She swung one of her hose-clad legs over him and straddled his lap.

"Rosaline," he breathed out, unable to help himself.

She leaned in and gave him a quick peck on the forehead before reaching around behind him from both sides in an awkward kind of hug. Her chest pressed up against his. The hair under her hat caressed his cheek. He turned his head slightly and breathed, taking in the smell of her. How could she even be here? He marveled at her very existence. How could a woman so incredible, so miraculous, even think to look upon the likes of him? Was he truly not dreaming this?

He could feel her strong arms move against his sides as she fiddled with the knot.

"Almost there," she said, and then, "A ha!"

The rope fell to the floor behind him with a soft thud, and immediately both of his hands were on her cheeks, bringing her mouth to his for a searing kiss.

She opened up to him, breathing into his mouth and clutching at his neck as her lips moved with his.

"Benvolio." She whispered his name like a prayer, and touched him so reverently, capturing his mouth in another kiss. Benvolio's hands moved down her face, her neck, her sides, and landed at her hips. She rocked herself up against him and he couldn't help but groan.

"Capulet." One of his hands fell upon something long and leather-bound. He pulled back and looked down at her waist. "Did you... know you had a dagger this whole time?"

Capulet followed his gaze and then let out a breathy laugh. He wanted to swallow the sound. "You know, I entirely forgot. Would have made quick work of those ropes."

He sat up and leaned forward, catching her lips in one more kiss. "Bless you for forgetting."

"Let's get out of here," she said, pulling away to stand above him and reach for his hand. "Before they see you're gone."

Benvolio allowed himself to be pulled up, then bent over to grab the forgotten rings. He fisted them tightly, remembering Tessa's frightened face as they flew toward her head. He let out a groan of frustration. The groan turned into a shout.

Capulet moved into his space, then, and grabbed him into a hug, holding him while he thrummed with angry energy. "It's alright, Montague. I have you."

"We can't go just yet," he said over her shoulder, holding onto her just as tight.

"What? Why not?" She pulled away and looked at him.

"He still has my aunt."

"That man I heard? Who cares. Didn't your aunt take you in the first place? Good riddance to bad eggs."

Benvolio wanted to grab her and hug her again, but he stopped himself, just. "He's going to kill her. I can't—I _hate_ her, with everything in me, but I can't just leave her to whatever torment he has planned for her."

"Couldn't we go for help?"

"I think we're it, love," he said, feeling the weight of responsibility heavy on his shoulders. "We're the cavalry."

Rosaline Capulet—the beautiful, majestic creature before him—shrugged. "I've gotten pretty good at rescuing Montagues, I must say."

God, that perfect smile of hers. Benvolio couldn't stop himself. He stepped in and kissed her again, one hand cupped behind her ear. She wrapped her arms around his back and clutched at his shoulders, pulling him closer. Her passion overwhelmed him. He brought his hand up through her hair, pulling off her hat and throwing it aside.

The gentle sound of it flopping to the floor pulled them away from each other, and they both breathed out, laughing a little manically in their adrenaline-fueled frenzy.

"That hat is so stupid," he said. "Please leave it here."

"But it's yours," she said. "And if we're to leave stupid things behind, I could put you back in those ropes."

"Capulet."

"I love this hat." She quickly retrieved it from the floor and placed it back on her head, feather tragically bent.

She looked him straight in the eyes with so much affection it made his heart hurt. "I'm never leaving it behind."

He smiled. She couldn't mean—? It mattered not. At least not right now. 

"Come on. Let's go." He held out his hand to her.

She took it.

 

* * *

  
  
Tessa allowed herself to be pulled down the hall, silently laughing at Mac for tying her hands in the front. How foolish of him. It allowed her to reach up on one side for her sharp hairpin, only just slightly knocking his arm where he held her. Quickly and efficiently she retrieved the pin from behind her ear and used it to start loosening the knot of rope keeping her hands bound. He didn't even look back, so focused was he on his anger.

He hadn't found the sheathed stiletto in her boot, either, after he'd betrayed and restrained her.

She'd warned him not to cross her.

That was to be the greatest mistake of his life.

  
  
 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wikipedia is responsible for all: [The Philosopher's Stone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone). (An object of obsession that does indeed predate Harry Potter.)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rosaline and Benvolio aren't out of the woods quite yet. Important questions are asked and life changing events unfold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See above to note the pre-planned rating change, and proceed accordingly.

 

 

 

"Did he get it?" Grizel hobbled as fast as she could over to Fergus and Drustan. They were passing a leather flask back and forth and kicking a small stone between them. "Are we rich?" She hadn't come all this way just for the waters, after all.

Those two gaumless lumps stared blankly at each other then back at her.

"We're getting the horses," Drustan said, pointing aimlessly. The horses were entirely on the other side of the house, she knew, as she had just been over there wondering where everyone else was.

"Found him some fancy rings, the laird did," Fergus said. Of the two of them, he could perhaps be considered the less vacant-brained, but only just. "Hold on there, Drus," he said, scratching himself in his nethers, "I gotta empty me pisser."

He immediately started untying his breeches. "Stop that." Grizel threw her water pail at him. It landed a few feet short of the target. "Told you idiots to go _before_ we woke the young lad, didn't I?"

If they weren't such effective bruisers and swordsmen, she'd have ground them up and fed them to her chickens ages ago. But the master seemed keen on them, no matter, and in the end that's all that really counted for anything.

"Ah, lay off," said Drustan, as Fergus tipped his head back and let loose a foul stream onto the side of the silo.

"What's the big rush, anyway?" Fergus said, still emptying. "We got run of this nice big house. It's a long ride o'er the mountains. Can't we just rest for a little while?" After an uncomfortably long time he shook off the last drops and tucked himself back in.

Drustan, meanwhile, stretched his meaty arms over his head and yawned, then thumped back against the stone wall. His eyelids fell as heavy as a dead cow.

"Just great," she mumbled to herself.

The sound of a horse clomping away from the other side of the house had Grizel rolling her eyes in annoyance. "Just great," she repeated, gathering her skirts and shuffling toward the outer edge of the silo. "Now the master's got ahead of us. He won't be right pleased about that. Come on, you two sacks."

"Oi," said Fergus, his hand above his eyes to cover the glare of the morning sun. "Who's that?"

A small figure in blue ran across the field toward a small copse of trees.

"Just great," Grizel said again. "Now there's this." She wished she still had her pail to throw, but she settled for kicking the grass instead. "Go check on the lad, you gits."

 

* * *

 

"Come on. Let's go." Montague held out his hand to her.

Rosaline took it. His hand was clammy and too warm and she didn't care in the slightest.

He started toward the door at the opposite end of the room, but Rosaline tugged at his arm. "Let's go this way," she said, urging toward the door she'd entered. "I brought a horse. It's out back."

"Just the one?" Montague said with a sly, albeit tired smile. "Very under-prepared of you, Capulet."

"Oh hush," she said, and led him back through the main hall, toward the kitchens. Just before they reached the door she stopped. There was no guarantee they were in the clear, and should they find themselves in a confrontation, neither of them was quite at their fighting best.

"Capulet?" he said. His voice was scratchy. She turned to him. His wan skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. He looked ready to fall over. She let go of his hand and, as expected, he collapsed sideways, his shoulder bumping against the wall.

"Montague," she said, as sternly as she could in her own exhausted state. "I know things are dire for Tessa, but we need to rest at some point. I rode all night to find you, and you've been knocked around a good deal it looks like." She gently rubbed her thumb against his temple, just underneath where a yellowish bruise was forming at his hairline.

Montague tipped his head down to her. "You rode all night?"

A sudden heat rose to her cheeks under his curious gaze. "That I did."

"To find me?" His eyes were wide and clear and oh so blue.

"I... Montague..." What was there to say to such palpable, unabashed hope? That she'd do anything for him? That his safety and happiness were the chiefest concerns of her heart? That she loved him more dearly than she ever thought it possible? _Yes_ , her heart cried out, no longer shying away from her feelings. _Say those things._

"Thank you," he replied to her silence. "I owe you my life twice over now." He took her hand again, and her heart beat double-time. "And _maybe_ you have a point."

She huffed a little bit at his disbelief, but it didn't slow her racing pulse.

"I am perhaps not in the best shape to do much but fall over," he said, his mouth a thin line of unhappiness. "But we at least have to track what direction he's taken her before we shirk our gallantry for a kip."

"Deal," she said, then reached up to seal it with a kiss, short and sweet. He breathed out in surprise, as if they hadn't just kissed a few minutes before. As if he couldn't believe she would ever kiss him again unless his life were in immediate danger. It was perhaps an unfortunate pattern she'd started that day in the dungeons of Verona.

Montague kept his eyes closed for a long time after she pulled away. She couldn't quite tell if it was from the kiss or his complete and total exhaustion. Part of her hoped it was the kiss.

Which she knew they would need to talk about. Eventually. Maybe when she got him into a bed—not like _that_ , Rosaline, she chided herself—and saw him safe from all this madness in this creepy old house, they could finally, finally have a moment to finish the conversation they'd started at the ball. And then she could breathe properly again.

"You wait here," she said, grabbing his shoulders and positioning him against the wall as if he were a doll to play with. He allowed her to do so without a word of fuss, exposing the true extent of his tiredness. "I'll bring the horse around."

She peeked her head outside and looked in both directions. The coast appeared clear, but she ran as fast as her tired legs would take her toward the wooded area where her horse waited, just in case.

The horse snorted at her when she saw her. "I missed you, too," Rosaline teased, patting the mare on the neck in solidarity. She pulled the cloth of food from the horse's side pack and wrapped it across her chest and over one shoulder, knotting the two ends together to keep it in place. She looped the waterskin through the drawstring tie on her breeches. The less weight the horse had to carry, the more likely she'd be able to get Montague to the inn unscathed.

Because he'd been scathed just a little too much for her liking thus far in their acquaintance. Did trouble pursue him or did he court it? No longer, she vowed, in either case. From this moment forward his life was to be as banal and uneventful as she could possibly manage. The biggest surprise he'd have to face would be an unwanted strawberry on his breakfast plate.

"Drop the knife," said an unfamiliar and grizzled voice.

Rosaline looked up, baffled; and she only felt more startled when she saw the tableau before her.

An old woman, bent at the back, was flanked on both sides by a pair of young men with swords. One of the men—and this was the truly upsetting part—held Montague in front of him, the tip of his sword angled up just mere centimeters from the underside of Montague's chin.

"Montague!" she said, lunging toward him by instinct alone. The sword moved just the slightest bit closer to him as the man holding him tightened his grip.

Montague held up his hands to her, trying to get her to stop. "Get out of here, Capulet! Save yourself!"

Where before he had been walking half-asleep, now he was alert. She could feel the nervous energy radiating off of him.

"No," she said, looking him in the eyes as she slowly removed her dagger with two fingers and dropped it on the ground at her feet. "Not this time."

"Kick it away," said the old woman. "There's a good... lass?" She narrowed her eyes and then shook her head.

Rosaline did as ordered, her eyes going back to Montague. He looked at her with a mixture of devastation and resignation, as if he'd hoped she'd listen to him for once in her life, but knew in his heart that was simply not a trait she possessed.

"Come here," the old woman said.

Rosaline came closer, each step hesitant, her hands up in surrender. No sudden moves, she warned herself. The sword at Montague's neck slowly inched away and she felt her lungs start to work regularly again.

In a language Rosaline couldn't understand, the old woman gave an order to the other man, the one not holding Montague, and then he was at Rosaline's side, grabbing her roughly by the arm. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Montague start to struggle; she tried to quell him with a look.

"It's okay," she mouthed to him. "It's going to be okay."

Swords at their backs, they were marched around the side of the house, to the entry of the round stone grain-silo.

"In there," the woman said. The two men looked at her and they started to have a heated argument in their foreign tongue. One of the men made a jabbing motion with his sword in the empty area in front of Rosaline's chest, then jabbed at the air three more times. He seemed to have a clear idea of how he wanted the encounter to end. Rosaline felt her throat dry up and looked to Montague. He looked back at her and she could see so much remorse in his eyes, as if this was his fault. As if he had asked for any of this. She nodded at him and tried to give him strength. Whatever end was to befall them, at least they were _together_. He could try to send her away all he liked, but if that meant living while he perished, she would never consent to that. Their fates were intertwined, had been since the moment he entered the church chasing after his foolhardy cousin, and if he didn't know that by now then she was just going to have to show him. With whatever time was left to them.

The incomprehensible argument between their captors continued until finally the two men seemed to relent, letting go of their quarry and shoving them into the darkened empty silo.

"Look here," the old woman said in her broken Latin. "We're not looking to kill you. We just needs a head start. So you just stay here. Just for a little while, eh?"

The door closed and a resounding thump followed, as if something heavy had been rolled in front of it.

 

* * *

 

"Well," Rosaline said to the closed door. "I've good news and bad."

Montague looked around, his shoulders drooped and energy-less once again. "We're standing in the bad. What on earth could be the good?"

Daylight crept in through a window about halfway up the stone wall above the door. In it were three large rondels made of a yellowed glass, but it was covered in a thick layer of dust, dimming the sunlight streaking in to a dark yellow glow.

"For one," Rosaline said, "they didn't take the food." She held her cloth bundle aloft, cradled in one arm, then carefully started unwrapping it from her shoulder with the other. "We've some bread and fruit, a little bit of cheese. I've a costrel, too." She jiggled her hip to draw attention to the waterskin looped at her side. "With a little food, and a lot of rest, we'll be ready to find a way out of here."

"I find your optimism vexing, Capulet."

"You love it. Here." She brought a crumbling piece of pecorino toward his mouth. "Eat some cheese."

He didn't argue. Instead he just rolled his eyes and opened his mouth, allowing her to feed him. She pushed the cheese in with a finger then wiped at the corner of his lips with her thumb, clearing it of imaginary food scraps.

She didn't know why she wasn't more scared. Here they were, yet again, in a danger that seemed to haunt them at every turn. But Rosaline only felt a sort of calm enter her heart. They were alive, and they were together, and at least for the time being, they had everything they needed to stay that way. There would be no prison guard, no prince, no kidnappers to intrude on them, to stop her heart from beating out its full tune of love.

There was just him, and her, food and drink and a cloth to sit on. It wasn't the most conventional picnic, but they weren't very good at conventional anyway.

"Here," she said, laying down the cloth and spread. "Sit with me. We'll eat half now, and save the rest for later. And then we are sleeping. And then we are getting out of here and going home."

Montague sat and chewed on a soft piece of bread and managed to smile at her. "Your optimism is a little less vexing now that my stomach is won over to your side."

They sat and ate and sipped at her remaining water, and they talked.

He told her everything that had happened, starting with the encounter with gamblers at the ball—Severin and Porfirio he called them—then stopped, deciding to go back even further.

His father—murdered by his own brother. Benvolio, young and helpless and alone, left under the care of the very people who had taken everything from him. The very people who didn't care if he lived or died except for what use he could bring to them in their quest for more riches. Rosaline felt her heart break for that little boy, and for the man before her.

He spoke of his father, of the wed rings and the puzzle box, opening it for that fiend Mac Findlaích, the treachery of his aunt and the murderous schemes she had pulled in Scotland.

"And you still want to save such a woman as that?" Rosaline asked.

"It's not about what kind of woman she is," Benvolio said. "It's about what kind of man I want to be. I wasn't... I haven't been a good man, Capulet."

"You have," she said.

"I wasn't always. Before you knew me—before Romeo died and I became my uncle's heir, I was... not particularly worth knowing. A drunk, and a gambler, and a cad. Wasting my life because it was the only thing that was mine to waste. You would've hated me, even more than you did before." His gaze went unfocused; his fingers played with the edge of the cloth absently. "If I hadn't been so deep in drink after Romeo fled the city, maybe I could have helped get word to him about your cousin's trick with the sleeping potion." He looked at her, eyes shining with tears. "Maybe they'd both still be alive."

"Benvolio." She reached out and softly ran her fingers down the side of his face. "You can't blame yourself."

"I can, and do. I've never admitted it out loud before, but it's true. And that's why I need to be better. I want to be worthy of—of their memory." He looked down a little guiltily, as if that wasn't what he'd meant to say, but some fear had stopped him.

"You are," she said, lifting his face so she could look him in the eyes. "No matter what anyone says, including you. You _are_ worthy of love."

He swallowed, but didn't say anything more. She took that as a sign to help maneuver him to lying down, readying him for the sleep he so desperately needed.

"Close your eyes," she said softly, and he did.

 

* * *

 

Rosaline blinked open her eyes and moved the hat on her head so the rim stopped poking into her temple. She must have been dead-tired to have fallen asleep wearing the silly thing. They must have slept for at least a few hours. The dull light in the room had changed slightly as the sun arced higher in the sky outside.

Montague was awake and touching the door in a way that made her want to ask if he required privacy.

"What are you doing?" she asked, getting up on sore legs and walking over to him.

"Looking for weak points. It feels like they've rolled a rock or something in front of the door down at the bottom, but if I can knock out some part of the top, we could maybe crawl through."

"What about the window?" Rosaline said, pointing up. The window was well more than three meters up, too high to scale but maybe not to use in some other way.

"If we had the power to levitate, certainly. An excellent idea, Capulet. After you."

The food and rest had done wonders for his sense of humor, Rosaline could see. "No, I just mean. Look at how dusty it is."

"Noted, but I'm not sure how critiquing the cleanliness of our prison helps exactly?"

Rosaline knocked him on the arm. "Maybe if you lift me, I can reach up and write something, a message for someone to see."

"Rosaline, no one is coming for us. We're all we have."

"I don't believe that," Rosaline said. "We are not alone in this world."

He didn't look convinced, but he shrugged his shoulders and motioned for her to use him as a human ladder. "Come on then," he said. "See if you can get on my shoulders. Take your shoes off first, you loon."

It took some circus-like maneuvering, but once they figured out how to use the wall at his back to help him balance while he went from a crouch to standing as a full-grown woman knelt on his shoulders, she was up in the air. She stood as carefully as possible, ignoring his protest as she used his head to keep her equilibrium, and stretched for the glass; but her reach was just a hand's length too short. She tried stretching up on her toes, but it made her wobble too much to one side. Gasping, she grabbed at the window sill with palms splayed and tried to keep her heart from beating out of her chest.

"How's it going up there, Capulet?" Benvolio's voice was strained as he kept her aloft, holding the backs of her ankles steady above his shoulders.

If only she had something she could use to reach those extra few centimeters and write with, like a quill or a... In a sudden inspiration it came to her.

Very carefully she pulled the silly hat off her head. She held it by the rim and aimed the pointy top of it toward the window. It scratched against the rondel glass, leaving a very clear path through the dust.

"Yes!" she cried out in victory, and finished scraping out her rudimentary message through two of the three circles she could reach. "Aye. Now the difficult part," she said, looking down and swallowing hard.

"I've got you," Benvolio said, gripping the back of her calf. "Just, you know, slide down. Me."

Rosaline took a deep breath. Maybe her incredibly ingenious plan hadn't been so great after all. "I can't," she said. "What if I just jump?"

"Rosaline." His voice was strong and calming. "I've got you. Use the wall and my head as much as you like. I'll catch you. I promise."

She breathed deep again and willed her pounding heart to slow. She could do this. She'd done far more dangerous things on her quest to find him. She slid to one knee and dropped her other leg down the front of his chest. He sandwiched it tight to him with his arm. She balanced her hand on his shoulder now and slid down the other leg. He grabbed her around the upper legs and held tight. She could feel his face pressing into her belly. It was oddly comforting. He slackened his arms just enough to facilitate her controlled fall down the front of him.

Before she knew it her feet were back on the ground and his arms were still around her, his face so close.

"Thank you," she whispered. He nodded at her slowly, staring at her lips. Rosaline closed her eyes.

"What did you write?" he said, instead of kissing her.

Rosaline opened her eyes, slightly miffed. "'Help'."

"Simple. To the point," he conceded. "Now we just need someone, anyone, to wander by this deserted, out of the way, haunted mansion and see it." He turned away from her and looked up. "Uh, Capulet?"

"Yes?"

"You've written it frontwards."

Rosaline blinked at him. "Yes. As words are typically written."

"The thing is, it's a window."

Rosaline felt her annoyance with him grow. "I am aware."

"It's just that... From the other side, you've called out for 'pleh'."

"I don't—what are you talking about? I wrote 'help' so someone will come help. I know you don't believe they will, but that's no reason to make fun of me."

"No," he said, smiling. "You're right. It's not."

She could tell he was holding back a laugh. She fisted her hands and stomped away from him, back to the cloth to sit and ignore him for a while.

"Go back to feeling up that door, then," she said, completely forgetting she meant to ignore him.

"Capulet," he said, trying to appease her. "I meant no offense."

"I am sure you did not. Now if you'll kindly excuse me," she said, sitting down with her back to the wall and hugging her knees to her chest, "I am going back to sleep. I rode all night trying to save you, if you'll remember."

"How could I forget," he said softly, and she felt her annoyance melt just the tiniest bit.

 

* * *

 

By the time he joined her on the floor her annoyance had dissipated into nothing. She rested her head on his shoulder and heard him take in a soft breath. She felt his cheek on the top of her head, then a quick peck from his lips before his cheek was back.

 

* * *

 

He got up again later and spent a good thirty minutes trying to scrape the mortar out between two of the stones with his boot. Rosaline silently offered him the feather from her hat, even though they both knew it would be just as useless a tool. He took it anyway and continued scraping.

 

* * *

 

"Why didn't you leave me?" he said, his voice quiet in the dusk of the room. "Why didn't you run when you had the chance?"

"They would have killed you if I had."

"Yes, but you'd have made it. You'd be free. That's all that matters." There was a momentary silence. "I don't."

"You do," she said, her heart aching. "You matter."

 

* * *

 

"Someone will come for us," Rosaline said around a yawn. She was using his chest as a pillow as they both lay on the hard-packed dirt floor, the cloth beneath them. He ran a hand through her hair, pulling out the tie to let the tresses loose at her shoulders.

"It's alright," he said in that same resigned way he had spoken to her in the dungeons before his planned execution. "Just keep holding me. It's alright."

Rosaline raised her head, but kept her hand on his chest. "Don't you give up on me Montague."

"Rosaline—" His eyes were sad and full of unshed tears.

"No," she said, as forcefully as she could. "We are going to get out of this."

"How?"

"Someone will come. Someone will find us."

He sat up, bringing her with him, and looked at her with something akin to pity, as if she were fooling herself with some wild fantasy. She wasn't. She'd been putting it all together in her head.

"Isabella," she said, and his eyebrows drew together in confusion. "Isabella knows I'm searching for you, and promised to help. She is ever true to her word. Oh, and Stella, she helped as well."

Benvolio pulled his head back as though he'd been slapped. " _Stella?_ Who works at the brothel, Stella?"

"The very same. Stella knows the two men who took you. She was with me when I found them, and they know where about we are. It's how I found you. As long as Stella and Isabella somehow put their facts together, there's no way they can't find us."

"So," Benvolio said, "our fate relies on a princess, and a prostitute, just by happenstance running into each other and sharing gossip. Great."

"You should have more faith. We women have been finding ways to accomplish the impossible for centuries."

"I'm not trying to disparage women in general. It's just Stella, in particular, who is perhaps slightly unreliable. You shouldn't trust her. Not with anything important."

"What happened between you two?" Rosaline asked, unsure if she wanted to hear the answer. "She seemed... a little sad when I asked her to help." She remembered the drawings and paintings that had sketched out a story of love and hope. Whose heart had been broken and who did the breaking?

Benvolio hesitated. "I thought I could trust her. I thought... she cared for me."

"And?"

"And I was wrong on both counts." He sniffed. She could tell he was trying his hardest to keep his emotions hidden, though that wasn't a skill he had ever come to close to mastering.

"Benvolio. I'm sorry."

"Tis no matter. I was foolish, and friendless, and overly invested. Everyone I loved had died and left me, and I was completely alone, except for her. But I never really had her in the first place. Not in any way that counted, beyond the coin in my purse. My uncle was right; the only thing anyone ever cares about, the only thing of value anyone sees in me, is his money." He sniffed again, but this time he couldn't keep the tears from pooling in his eyes. " _Gold_." He spat the word like a curse. "That's what this is all about. That's why we're stuck here, with no hope of rescue. Gold has destroyed more men's hearts than any blade."

"There is hope, Benvolio. We are going to survive." She wiped his tears away with the pad of her thumb.

"I want to believe you, Capulet."

"Then believe me. It's as simple as that."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, for I am always right. And you're wrong, too."

"Of course. About what?"

"There is  _so_ much more to you than your family's money," she said. "I see a man who loves strong and true. Who is trustworthy and brave and kind." She cupped his face again and moved closer to him, placing one of her knees between his legs. The world had wounded him, his own family had hurt him so, but she needed him to know how dear he was to her. She needed to give him everything precious she had so he could know just how precious _he_ was. "Your value is not in gold. Here before me is a man worth caring about. A man worth knowing. And I want to know you, every aggravating part of you."

She stretched up then and captured his mouth in a soft kiss. They'd had so much time here, alone, to tell each other everything, and they'd wasted it squabbling. No more. It was time to show him how she felt.

Tilting her head, she deepened the kiss. The hand that was on his chest snaked down lower, tugging his shirt out of his trousers and then sneaking in under to feel his chest, the warmth and the strength of it. She felt him gasp into her mouth, and then he bit down on her lip when her hand went lower, stroking against his maleness through the leather of his trousers. He twitched up into the press of her hand and let out a desperate sound.

Her own boldness made her shiver, and she felt her whole body come alive.

"Every part," she repeated. "As I want you to know every part of me," she said, breathing hard. Now was the time. Her heart and her mind were in alignment. She wanted this, more than anything else in the world. She took his hand and placed it on her chest, over one of her wrapped breasts. "Bed me, Benvolio."

"What? No." He pulled back. His eyes were dark, his lips were red, his hair in disarray. He looked wild and sensuous and scared. "Rosaline, we can't."

"Why not?"

His hand was still on her chest. "Because dying isn't a good enough reason for me." 

"We are not dying here. Not today, not tomorrow, not any day." She ran her hand up under his shirt again. "I want this."

"It's not right."

"I want _you_ , Benvolio," she said, though that wasn't quite all. She needed to say so much more to him. _Courage, Rosaline_. "I want you to take me. I know you know how."

"Capulet, please. You're not in your right mind. You're tired, and scared, and I can't—it would be a trespass so severe. You'd never forgive me. I'd never forgive myself."

"Will you stop being chivalrous for one second and listen to me? I _trust_ you. You would never hurt me. This isn't because I'm scared, or foolish, or alone." He flinched a little bit at her pointed word choice. Rosaline took no pleasure in it, but it had the intended effect. He was hanging on her every word. Now was the time to say what her heart had been too shy to admit before, what it _ached_ for her to reveal now, while they had the chance. "The night of the ball," she started. "You were going to ask me something."

He dropped his head as if ashamed. She gently lifted his chin and made him look her in the eyes.

"You were... going to ask me to marry you," she answered for him while her eyes stung with the salt of her tears. The last remnants of the denials she'd been harboring, all the walls she'd put up, they melted away; she was left raw and exposed. Her throat hurt with each breath. "You were going to ask, and I would have said yes." Her voice broke. "I would have said _yes_."

His eyes were wide blue pools, shimmering and wet. "Rosaline—you don't have to—I know you don't—"

"Ask me now," she said, cutting him off before he could talk himself out of believing her. "We're here, together, with no one to stop you. Ask me now."

" _Marry me._ " It came out as a harsh whisper, his voice breaking too, on the edge of a sob.

"Yes," she said, and tried to hold back her tears. They slipped out anyway. "Yes, I will marry you." She cradled his face in her hands and rested her forehead against his. She needed him to believe her, that this wasn't desperation, or pity, or some kind of trick. She needed him to _feel_ every word she meant. "I love you. I love you, Benvolio Montague. My heart calls out for you. My heart, my body, my everything."

"I love you," he said, and kissed her. One of his hands cupped the back of her head, and he held her so gently. "I wanted to marry you so badly. I've never wanted anything more. I'm so sorry." He shook his head, their foreheads still touching. "I'm so sorry we never got the chance."

"No." She pulled his face closer and kissed him with every ounce of passion in her body. "Benvolio Montague, you _will_ marry me. As God as our witness. You will marry me right now, right here, in this terrible room. And then we are getting out of here and spending our _very long_ lives together."

"Rosaline." He pulled her to him, their chests coming together as one, and kissed her again, desperately, as if it were to be the last time.

He drew back and took both of her hands in his. She could see the tears pooling in his beautiful, sad eyes. "Alright. Yes. I will." He closed his eyes and tilted his head up. "Oh. We might need these," he said, laughing a little nervously as he pulled the gold-plated rings from his pocket. "What luck." He let out another disbelieving laugh, followed by a shuddering breath as he returned his gaze to hers. "I think I remember how it goes."

He sat up straighter, moving to his knees. She did the same, grabbing his hands and keeping their bodies close. "In the name of the Lord," he started, his voice soft, hesitant, "I, Benvolio, of the House of Montague, do bind myself to thee, Rosaline of the House of Capulet, and take thee as my wedded wife." He took one of the rings and slid it onto her finger. His voice grew stronger, more assured. "I promise to love, protect, and cherish thee, in richer and poorer, in sickness and good health, for as long as we both shall live." The tears finally overflowed his eyes and fell down his cheeks. His shoulders shook as he held back a sob.

Rosaline took the other ring and clasped his hand, then brought it to her lips. She leaned in and gently kissed the crease between his eyebrows, feeling it relax under her lips, and wiped his tears from his cheeks as she cupped his face.

"In the name of the Lord, I, Rosaline, of the House of Capulet, do bind myself to thee." She kissed his hand again and slid the ring on his finger. "Benvolio of the House of Montague, and take thee as my wedded husband. I promise to love, protect, and _cherish_ thee, to find thee no matter where thou hast misplaced thyself—" He laughed as more tears slipped down his face. She laughed too, and felt her own tears fall. "In richer and poorer, in sickness and good health, for as _long_ as we both shall live."

She barely finished the oath before he was kissing her again. His mouth tasted of salty tears and she swallowed every last one of them. She would swallow all of his sadness, all of his despair, she would take all of his hurts and put them in her chest and protect him from all the cruelties of the world. "And we shall," she vowed between kisses, "live."

He opened his mouth and deepened the kiss. She opened hers too and let him in, let him know every part of her, just as she'd promised. His hands curled up under her arms around her back, and then to the front again, pulling at the ties of her doublet. She pushed him down to sitting again, crawled over him and straddled him, just as she had done while untying him. He groaned into her mouth and she felt his hips twitch up, felt the hardness in his lap growing. The feel of it, knowing she did this to him, made him wild like this, had her breathing hard, had a shiver running down her chest, into her belly and between her legs. She rolled her hips to bring herself closer to him, to chase that feeling in her core and send another tingle all through her.

The doublet fell from her shoulders and Rosaline shivered. Benvolio's fingers brushed up against the wrapping around her chest while he kissed her.

He pulled back just enough to speak. "What's this?"

"Your bed sheet," she said, gasping out a soundless laugh into his mouth. "Twas all I had."

"Tis the devil's work," he murmured, his lips moving down across the dip of her throat, moving to the top of her cloth-covered chest. "Trapping such loveliness."

"Then un-trap it," she said, holding his head between her hands.

He unwrapped the sheet around her chest slowly, every gentle touch setting her skin afire. His calloused fingers left a prickled trail of warmth, raising her flesh in goose bumps.

Finally the sheet fluttered to the floor beside her and the cold air of the room made her skin flush, made her exposed nipples tighten into hard buds. He moved his hands slowly up and down her bare sides, the sensitive skin over her ribs, his touch reverent, but hesitant, too.

"You are stunning," he said, breathless.

"You are still wearing clothes," she replied. 

"I can remedy that," he said, pulling his shirt over his head. Now it was her turn to kiss his newly exposed skin. He ran his hand through her hair as she tasted his chest, his shoulders, the funny little nubs of his nipples. 

"I hope getting these leathers off is easier than putting them on," Rosaline said, reaching again for his waistline.

Benvolio barked out a surprised laugh. "Did you—?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she said quickly, undoing her own drawstring with ease.

 

* * *

 

Benvolio was too overwhelmed to do much of anything except follow Capulet's lead. He helped her pull off her breeches and hose, his hands running over the beautiful mounds of her bottom. Her skin was soft and warm and the most perfect shade of brown. She had to stand to pull the hose and breeches completely from her, and he could only stare up at her in awe. With the light of the window behind her she was something out of a painting, her form strong and supple and curved.

"Well?" she said, gesturing down at his own leather-clad legs.

He scrambled up to standing and practically hopped out of his leathers one leg at a time, and then he was standing before her, entirely nude, his half-hard prick bobbing with interest. Rosaline looked down at it with a curious glint in her eyes. Bravely she reached out and caressed him. Benvolio pulled her to him and kissed her, their bare chests sliding together perfectly.

"Are you certain?" he said, one hand cupped at her mons, prepared to venture lower but only with the utmost permission.

"Yes," she said, her gaze true. She kissed him, gasping into his mouth as his fingers explored her. 

 

* * *

 

They ended up back on the floor, the cloth and bed sheet arranged beneath them. He sat with his back to the wall, his knees bent and feet planted, and she crawled over him, settling herself in the cradle of his lap, as if he were her steed. 

"Take your time," he said, giving her the reins.

She moved with precision, no fear in her eyes, slowly but without hesitation. Their gazes met and held as she lowered herself.

The heat of her was intense. He grasped at the cloth beneath him with one hand while the other ran up and down her back. She held onto his shoulders and he curled his arm around her back, bringing their chests back together as he kissed her, their lips just brushing up against each other, over and over again. Her breath was his breath, and the whole room shrank down to just this, this quiet exchange of breaths.

She set a languid, tantalizing pace; her body moved on top of him like honey poured over plums. She rolled up against him slowly, rising just the smallest bit before sinking down again. Her exhales came in short bursts, little hums and gasps he caught in his mouth as she rocked forward, her delicate mons pushing up against the hard wall of his body, making her tremble.

"Yes," she whispered against his mouth, again and again, encouraging him and soothing him, lest he worry about hurting her. " _Yes_."

He cupped one of her breasts gently, rubbing his thumb over her puckered nipple. She jerked against him and moaned, so sensitive was her body to his touch. His every cell was alight with sensitivity too. He could feel every clench of her, every twitch, and made it his only goal in life to make her clench harder, longer, around him. He clutched at her breast a little more vigorously and felt a shudder move down her whole body. She arched her back and pitched forward with more intensity, sucking in a sharp breath through her teeth.

With her back arched he was able to lean down and catch the hard tip of her breast in his mouth, sucking and pulling on her peaked and sensitive skin. It made her keen, and she grabbed the back of his head and held him there while she writhed, rolling her hips slowly forward and back, no longer even lifting herself off of him.

He raised his head and with both hands gripping her waist he began to thrust, hips flexing with a beautiful ache. She swallowed her gasps with each canting upshot, her grip tightening on his shoulders. The desperate sounds she made low in her throat went straight to his core, shaking him and pushing him ever closer to the precipice.

He kissed her breasts again, her neck, her pulse, sucking her skin into his mouth and tasting the sweet saltiness of her. She exhaled a throaty stream of "Huh, huh, huh, huh," her breath sticky and warm on his ear, as she started riding him faster, her hips undulating in a steady, strong rhythm.

She was a goddess above him, her head thrown back, her neck long and ethereal and so very kissable. He ran his mouth up the column of her throat, felt every hitched breath as he rocked into her, and lost himself in her skin, in the slip and surge of their bodies.

" _Rosaline_."

Soon her thrusts grew more erratic, her gasps and sighs more sharp, as if she were searching for something, bucking toward something just out of reach. With as much dexterity as he could manage, Benvolio slipped a hand between them and gently, ever so gently, circled his fingers round the sensitive bud at her core.

"Oh," she gasped, nodding her head. "Mm hm."

He changed direction and her back went taut; she seized up around him, her mouth opening in a deep, stuttering moan. She scrabbled at his shoulders as her body clenched around him in wracking spasms. He held her close while she shook, gasping out shuddering little noises as her climax took her.

It was entrancing; his mind went white and blank with awe. She was here, she _loved_ him, she'd married him and let him inside her. His own climax surprised him then, wrung out of him by the clenching squeeze of her body. He cried out and snapped his hips up with short, urgent thrusts, spilling into her with a desperate groan he felt all the way to his curled toes.

"Rosaline," he breathed out, when he was able to breathe again. His toes uncurled and he caressed the damp skin of her face.

"My Benvolio." She looked at him with dazed, dark eyes, and smiled. "Husband. I love you," she said, and rested her head on his chest as they lay back, uncoupling their bodies only so as to rearrange herself more comfortably atop him. "So dearly," she finished on a whisper, and fell into a dreamy sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my rudimentary research on medieval and renaissance marriages, I came across the interesting fact that church officials were not in fact required to make a marriage binding and legal before the 16th century. All it really took was consent and in most cases copulation. So. That happened.
> 
> And if it wasn't obvious before that I was molded by melodramatic films and soap operas of the 1980s, the whole "we're probably not going to survive this, let's make tender love" trope popping up is a good clue. I blame _The Terminator_. (Blame? No. I thank _The Terminator_.)
> 
> One more chapter to go...


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